Writing A Book

For the past two months I’ve been writing a book that has turned into an obsession. It’s more than just a story, but to call it a novel sounds pretentious. But at 16 chapters with no end in sight, I suppose it qualifies. Every time I try to summarize what it’s “about”, it ends up sounding ridiculous. Let me try again…

It’s about a man who has a prodigious ability for winning games of chance, a gambling savant, who meets and falls in love with a woman who is his total opposite in every way that matters and who happens to be clairvoyant. Eventually they end up hating each other and getting a divorce, about as ugly a divorce as can be imagined since it involves, infidelity, bankruptcy, and a suicide attempt. After the protagonist’s parents pass away, he moves back into their home whereupon he starts getting nightly visits from his ex-wife in his dreams. Unknown to him, his ex-wife is seeing him in her dreams every night as well. After a while it is difficult to differentiate between reality and dreams, as the two of them try to deal with issues of forgiveness, the possibility of redemption, and the spectre of loss.

See what I mean?

But here’s the cool thing, writing a story is a little like being God. You create these characters, endow them with personality, then turn them loose to interact with each other. Sometimes you are pleased with them and the decisions they make, other times you want to smack the hell out of them. I imagine that God feels the same way looking down upon us. The big difference obviously is that I can write my characters out of trouble. In the real world, what’s done is done. Still, it has been great fun creating an entire universe of people whose fate is in my hands. I spend half my time researching details. What exactly was the color of the steel in that great big arch bridge on I-95 leading into Maine? Google Earth to the rescue, green! Then I write a couple thousand words a night, and when I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing.

Two things I’ve come to understand over these past two months. First, I fully understand why so many novelists are crazy. Writing changes you, transforms you into someone else, a not entirely pleasant experience. Secondly, it is great fun. Creating something, no matter how amateurish, is an exhilarating experience. Although my story is not auto-biographical by any stretch, it does contain much of who I am. I can only write what I know, so my experiences inform my characters. I have no idea how it will all end. I feel as though I’m about half way done.

I’ll keep you posted.

Wonder What It's Like In Key West Today?

It is March the 18^th. I wake up this morning at 6:10 to the sound of ice pellets ticking against the windows. I stumble out into the hallway; walk over to the big Palladian window that overlooks my front yard. My heart sinks. My chin drops to my chest. There’s an inch and a half film of slush covering the world, and now a mixture of sleet and freezing rain is adding to the misery. There is not one single sign of life, no dogs, cats, birds or even squirrels to be seen. Where do they go at times like these? I trudge into my office and check out the weather radar map. It shows a band of green and pink running directly through Short Pump, with an ominous blue band to the north and west. It is 33 degrees. This is not the day that the Lord has made; this day comes directly from the pit of hell courtesy of Lucifer himself.

I slump back in my chair. I grab my cell phone and open the weather gadget that shows the 7 day forecast of some of my favorite places. I flip over to Key West. Just as I suspected, the forecast for the entire week shows bright sunshine and 79 degrees, all seven days, into infinity. I remember when I was younger I used to brag about being from Virginia. Specifically, I would champion the fact that in Virginia one gets to enjoy all four seasons, and about how the changing of the seasons brought with it charm and variety. Lies, all lies.

I have a birthday coming up. I will turn 55. Seasons have become overrated. The only season that appeals to me on mornings like this is the monotonous 79 and sunny of places like Key West and San Diego. I’ve been warned about global warning for over 15 years now and, well, it can’t get here soon enough for me.

What Is The "Good Life"?

Yesterday was our day to take dinner out to my Dad. It was the day before St. Patrick’s Day, so Pam decided to plan an Irish dinner. By 3 o’clock the kitchen was alive with activity. There would be her famous meat loaf, with a raw sliced sliver of carrot, coin-shaped hidden inside one serving. Whoever got the orange “coin” would be blessed with good luck throughout the year. There would be mashed potatoes, green beans, and homemade Irish Soda bread with raisins. For dessert she had made bright green Pistachio pie. In honor of the day, she renamed all of these dishes to suit the occasion. Meat loaf became “Blarney Stones,” dessert became “Shamrock Pie”. Then she went out and bought special green shamrock paper plates to serve the pie on, along with matching four leaf clover napkins. For Ezra she bought Irish themed stickers featuring Snoopy and Woodstock dressed up like Leprechauns. She even wrote his name at the top of a piece of green construction paper so he would have a place to stick them. The dinner was a rousing success. Everyone cleaned their plates. There were six “Blarney Stones” in the dish and only 5 of us, so in keeping with the famous Dunnevant luck; the lucky coin will appear in dad’s leftovers today.

As I watched Pam flitting about the kitchen preparing this meal, it occurred to me that a life well lived is not heralded by screaming headlines in the newspaper, rather it comes in the form of a thousand daily graces. It doesn’t come from wearing the right clothes, living in the right house or driving the right car, it comes from sharing your life with people who take care of the details with tenderness, people for whom the little things in life aren’t little at all. The “good life” is the sum total of these tender moments. My wife’s talent for transforming the routine into something extraordinary has made for me and our family a remarkable life. Even after nearly 30 years together, her loving kindness still astonishes me.

Want some marital advice? Marry the right woman.

I Have A Problem

 Dear Compassionate Reader,

 

I have a password problem. I love technology as much as the next guy. Seems like every week I discover some new urber-cool app that I just HAVE to have.(Not really, I am 54 after all). However, what with my business needs, personal finance demands as well as the occasional entertainment app, I am constantly being asked for a username and password to gain entry into the glorious world of the World Wide Web. So, what’s the problem, you ask? The problem is that I can’t keep up with them.

All of the cyber security folks out there are constantly encouraging me to come up with original, difficult to hack passwords. Apparently, the internet is populated with nefarious geeks bent on world domination, whose goal in life is to gain entry into my Spotify account and wreak havoc. Ok, I get it. But the more in decipherable my password is, the less likely I will ever remember it without adding it to my dog-eared password and username cheat sheet. Yes, that’s right sports fans; I have a single sheet of paper with all of my usernames and passwords written out. Now, I’m painfully aware that it would be better if I had them in some encrypted file somewhere on my computer, but I’m not savvy enough for that. So, I carry around my trusted cheat sheet. It’s like my digital keychain. It has passwords for 19 different websites and apps. If ever I were to lose this thing, my life would be over.

In addition to that potential nightmare, there’s the related problem of all the places I go where I have established a username and password, failed to write them down, so I can’t gain access.( Hello, Twitter, GoodReads and Soundcloud). I’m aware that admitting my failures in this regard will open me up to howls of laughter from my young tech-savvy friends, but so be it. I need help. I would ask my wife for help since she is the All-Knowing, Strikingly Gorgeous, Internet Goddess in my house, but I’m thinking it would less humiliating to be schooled by a twenty-something know it all than Pam. Just sayin’.

So, hit me up with the sarcastic jabs, and then offer some guidance for your old friend.

 

Clueless In Cyberspace,

Doug

NOOOO!! Is That Meeting Today?? NOOOO!!!

I was awake before the alarm went off this morning. Today is one of the two or three days of the year that I dread the most, the day I meet with my accountant and give him my 6 inch stack of paper so he can prepare my tax return.

The very idea that I should have to save these scraps of paper in my tax shoe box all year, then pay my guy $750 bucks to construct my 50 page return galls me like nothing else in this world. Less you think I’m some 1% billionaire, think again. I am only a reasonably successful small business owner. However, because of the complexities of the tax scheme under which we labor, I began employing accountants over 25 years ago to fight my battles for me. When I sign off on the thick volume of forms, schedules, and summaries that he produces, something inside me becomes enraged. Why should I be forced to do this? How can filing taxes have become such an arcane exercise so hopelessly beyond the capabilities of mere mortals?

The worst part is I don’t even know how to help my kids file their own taxes. When you’ve had it done for you for longer than either of your children has been alive, you become worthless to them, unable to answer even the most basic of questions.

So, my meeting will go something like this:

Accountant: Ok, Doug, I see you’ve got all your receipts. Good. What kind of year did you have in 2012?

Me: Terrible.

Accountant: Sorry to hear that. So, you made less money?

Me: No, a little more, which means I’ll probably lose the ability to deduct something and end up having to pay more.

Accountant: Ha! Doug, you are so funny!

Me:…………………crickets

Accountant: Doug, I see here that you only sent the IRS $2500 in December, not the $4000 that we had agreed on, any particular reason?

Me: A very good reason…I didn’t have enough money in my account to cover a $4000 check, so I gave them what I had.

Accountant: I see…. Well, my preliminary calculations indicate that you will probably owe a bit more this year, but it might not be too bad.

Me:………………………crickets

Accountant: I’ll have this return back to you in a couple of weeks.

 “Not too bad” turns out to be an outrageous lie. I owe an insane amount of money to the Feds and the State. I scrape together the money and pay what I owe, since the last person on earth you want to have as a creditor is the Internal Revenue Service. I survive to fight another day.

This nation once had the stones to put a man on the moon, whip the Germans twice in 30 years, and invent Jazz, but can’t figure out how to tax its citizens in a way that doesn’t involve a 67,000 page tax code.

Hopeless.

Do You Need Some Nanny-ing?

The modern, Welfare State is sometimes referred to by its critics as the “Nanny State”. The term “nanny” can, of course, refer to either a hired nanny who serves as a substitute for the mother too busy for work so mundane as raising children, or it can also refer to one’s grandmother. In either case, we all understand what the roll of a nanny is, ie…to force us to do unpleasant things that left to our own devices we would not bother to do, like eat our vegetables, brush our teeth, do our homework, take out the trash, pick our clothes up off the floor, make our beds etc..

Renowned British-born and seldom watched talk show host Piers Morgan recently objected to the nanny State criticism, saying that he thought most people needed a little nanny-ing every once in a while, so why shouldn’t the State provide it? Now, let’s think this concept through.

Do I ever need “ nanny-ing” ? The honest answer is, yes. Nowadays, I get a little nanny-ing from my wife now and then, since she is the one most likely trying to get me to do stuff that’s good for me. She might shoot me a nasty look when I pick up that 7^th cookie from the plate thirty minutes before dinner and say something like, “What, are you like in fifth grade?! Stop eating those cookies before dinner! It will ruin your appetite.”  I drop the cookie and slink away before she realizes that I have two more in my pocket. But, now, let’s examine how this example of nanny-ing is different from government provided Nanny-ing.

Pam’s nanny-ing costs me nothing, except temporary embarrassment. Government Nanny-ing costs all of us plenty. Government would seek to prevent me from eating seven cookies and pilfering another two by limiting the amount of raw sugar my wife is allowed to purchase at the grocery store, which in turn drives up the cost of sugar, creates a black market for cookies and turns the Cookie-Monster into public enemy number one, severely crushing Sesame Street’s ratings resulting in ever higher government subsidies for Public television. It’s the Iron-Clad law of unintended consequesnces.

Mayor Bloomberg sees New Yorkers with huge beer bellies everywhere he looks, so in his roll as Nanny-In-Chief decides to arbitrarily reduce the size of fountain drinks sold within the city. So now, Joe the Plumber can’t get his Big-Gulp, so in frustration, goes to his local bar instead where there are no intake restrictions, which results in some of the shoddiest plumbing work seen in New York since the great toilet scandal of 1916, increased alcoholism in the Plumbers Union resulting in a new government study into why Plumbers drink so much.

The lesson should be clear, even for third rate British television personalities. Although nanny-ing may be a minor annoyance in your own home, it doesn’t result in higher taxes for your neighbors, which makes it profoundly more desirable than the government kind.

Baptist vs. Catholic

I must confess that I know very little of the history of the Catholic Church. I couldn’t name 5 Popes. Oh, I know something of the Vatican, the incredible art that lives within its walls etc. but as far as the business of the church, I am clueless. But on the rare occasions when it’s time to elect a Pope, I become fascinated.

First there’s the red-robed Cardinals walking around in circles chanting stuff and looking terrible solemn. Then there’s the walk over to the Sistine Chapel where the security detail guards dressed in the coolest uniforms ever lock the doors, shielding the 115 cardinals from the outside world. Once inside these fine feathered gentlemen will take 4 votes a day until there’s a two thirds majority agreement. Once agreement is reached on the next infallible man, a hastily erected chimney on the top of the chapel will belch white smoke as a sign to the faithful that a new Pope has been chosen. Now, let me tell you, these Catholics can teach the rest of us a thing or two about drama!

Can you imagine the Southern Baptist Convention going through these histrionics to elect a new…what do you even call the head of Southern Baptists anyway? First of all, you probably couldn’t get 115 Baptists to agree on a building to be locked away in, besides which, it would take two years to pick the 115, for fear that some annoying moderate might slip through the cracks. And, can you imagine those 115 Baptists being able to keep a secret long enough to start a fire to break the news to the world? Half of them will have tweeted the results within 15 seconds of the vote! Oh, I think the head guy is called the President.

Anyway, the Catholics have always done pageantry better than anyone. The most dyed in the wool atheist alive would feel some sense of reverence upon entering the Sistine Chapel, for example. Regardless of one’s theological proclivities, there’s something overpowering about the profound reverence one feels upon entering a Catholic church. They’re all so dimly lit, so magisterial, so quiet. What, with the flickering candlelight, stained glass, and people kneeling all over the place, it makes you check yourself to make sure you look presentable.

Now, I couldn’t take a steady diet of all that formality and ritual, but I have to say as a Baptist, that I do long for a more serious, humble experience in church every once in a while. Our services more resemble a Kiwanis club luncheon with all the glad-handing, laughter, and jokes flying around. “Greet someone around you who you haven’t met before, church!” the pastor extols while lively music rings from the rafters.  For all of Baptist rhetoric about how God is so Holy and such a righteous judge, we sure do a lot of shucking and jiving in his presence. Most of the folks I’ve seen in the pews of a Catholic Church look like they are so deep in thought that the last thing they want to do is shake hands with a stranger. Of course, it’s always difficult to be glib and informal by candle light.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to convert to Catholicism. It’s a theological mess for one thing, biblically incoherent and just plain creepy at times, but whenever it’s time to elect a Pope, I do envy them their seriousness, their sense of history, purpose, and the grandeur of their style. They do the Glory of God better than anyone on the planet, and in 2013 there are worse things a church can be known for.

Three Movie Reviews

Pam and I watched three movies that had Oscar nominations over the weekend. The first was Anna Karenina, then Hitchcock, and finally Argo. Here follows three brief reviews:

 The great Tolstoy book was placed on screen in an almost surreal way with the heavy use of 3^rd party dream sequences that were a bit confusing at times, but I would sit down and watch Keira Knightley for two hours in practically anything, her of the beguilingly crooked teeth but amazing beauty and talent. Jude Law is terrific as Anna’s faithful husband, while the dude who plays Count Vronsky is positively dreadful. His only qualifications for the roll seem to have been his striking blue eyes and the fact that he “looks Russian”. Karenina is a great story of infatuation, temptation and the wages of sin, great book, mediocre film. The costumes and photography were amazingly well done, and the despite its 2 and a half hour running time, the story moves right along. Still, when Knightly wasn’t on camera, I was bored.

 I love Alfred Hitchcock. I’ve seen all his movies multiple times. I believe him to be one of the few real geniuses in cinematic history. I also love Anthony Hopkins, who may be one of the two or three best actors alive today. So, what was not to like? Enjoyed every minute of this film, which essentially tells the story of the making of Psycho, of how Hitchcock was considered old and over the hill, and couldn’t get Paramount to approve the movie so he financed it himself by mortgaging his house in exchange for 49% of the profits. Of course, the rest as they say is history. Great performance by Hopkins. I especially loved the 98 minute running time, as if the ghost of Hitchcock was in charge of editing!

 Finally we watched the 2012 Best Picture winner…Argo. Terrific picture. Suspenseful, great pacing, amazing actors. In short, it deserved its awards. The fact that Affleck didn’t receive a Best Director nomination just proves how screwed up is “the Academy.” I lived through the 1979 hostage crisis with Iran. I remember it very well. As I watched the film I kept thinking, here it is 34 years later and we have learned absolutely nothing. We’re still hip deep in Iran’s business, still getting our guys killed in Afghanistan, still rubbing shoulders with towel-heads from Jordan to Yemen, WHY??? Nothing good has ever come from fooling around in the Middle East. Can we just develop our natural gas reserves here and tell the whole lot of them to hit the road?! I say Frack, Frack, Frack and then Frack some more until we have to buy ZERO barrels of oil from the Abdul’s of the world, then we’ll see what becomes of their “civilization”. But, I digress. Argo was amazing. Who knew that Ben Affleck had actual talent?

Justin Bieber's Gas Mask...As Predictable As The Tides

What do the following people have in common?

Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Charlie Sheen, Rihanna, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, and now Justin Bieber?

They are all American entertainers who burst on the scene with All-American charm and good-looks and a certain naïve innocence, only to be transformed into raving lunatics. Three on the list are dead by their own hands, the other five, not yet.

This morning in my round up of the morning news I am treated to a picture of Justin Bieber wearing a gas mask, and a headline informing me that the 19 year old had collapsed onstage and been taken to the hospital. The sad truth is that nobody in America is surprised. This is what happens here, this is what we do to famous people.

It probably doesn’t help keeping one’s own self-image in perspective when at age 19 you already have your own line of designer toothbrushes. Must be difficult to maintain humility when before you’re even old enough to take a drink, you have enough money to buy the brewery. So, seeing Bieber’s boyish face covered with a gas mask surrounded by body guards and paparazzi seems the most normal thing in the world at 7 in the morning. TMZ will have all the details tonight, but the story will be so old hat, it will probably end up third in the queue behind Rihanna’s latest porn video or Lindsay Lohan’s latest court appearance.

Fame in America has become a ticket to insanity, a cycle as predictable as the tides. First we discover the latest fresh face on America’s Got Talent or American Idol. We fall in love with the voice, the style, the possibility of greatness. Then our new hero has hit after hit, sells a billion records, and before they know what has hit them, there’s an “Inc.” at the end of their name. Then come the endorsements, the round the clock exposure, the superhuman schedule, magazine covers, televised interviews. Before long rumors swirl about wild parties, drunkenness and drug use. Then pictures surface of violent clashes with cameramen. A sex tape emerges as sure as the sun rising in the east. They develop a reputation for being “difficult” to work with. Showing up 2 hours late for everything becomes commonplace. Then we’re treated to a series of hook-ups with other equally young, rich, and ungrounded celebrity types. Eventually there will be run-ins with the law, DUI’s, and the unavoidable paternity suit/ unplanned pregnancy. The cycle most likely ends with our hero hold up in a Xanadu of their own making wasting away into madness. The nation mourns at the inevitable news of their tragic and untimely end.

Momma’s, don’t let your babies grow up to be famous.

Snow Day, And Some "Epic" News

Dave Tolleris, the bloviating know-it-all meteorologist of Facebook , spent the better part of two weeks hyping the snow-storm of the century, and calling the TV guys who disagreed with him idiots and morons. Then, yesterday morning, he confessed on the radio that he had blown the forecast and we weren’t going to get anything. So I go to bed last night with zero expectations.

I wake up this morning and it’s snowing like crazy, with 2 or 3 inches on the ground with more coming. I go into the office only to find that my 10:30 appointment has been rescheduled. I grab some paperwork that I can do at home and returned to a warm house and the smell of freshly made homemade blueberry pancakes. Life is good, especially when arrogant spotlight hogs get their comeuppance.

So, today, I will spend the day at home with my wife, do a little paperwork, and spend the rest of the day writing. Then by around 3 or so in the afternoon, I will start to feel the famous Dunnevant personality disorder...claustrophobia.  Pam will roll her eyes at me and say, “Go ahead! There’s nothing I can say to stop you anyway, you strange man,” and I will head over to AMFAM for a workout, partly because today is Wednesday and it’s time, but mostly because if I don’t get in the car and drive somewhere, I’m going to pull my hair out or force Pam to, one or the other. It is one of several personality disorders that she has so ably learned to live with over the past 29 years.

Oh, and one more thing. Since most of us are at home doing nothing but surfing the net, just thought I’d share this news item. I beat Kim Davis at Words With Friends, actually “beat” is an insufficient modifier, more like humiliated. Anyway the score was 517- 290, and no, you read that right, 517 points. If I didn’t know better I would suggest that maybe Elle had played me instead of Kim. Be that as it may, now that I have broadcast this epic triumph over these interwebs, I guess I should let it go and not keep bring it up every time I see her.

Or not.

"PREACHER-SPEAK"

As a Preacher’s kid, I feel uniquely qualified to speak on the following subject, to wit, preacher-speak, that annoying foreign tongue employed in the pulpit and nowhere else on planet earth. I recently heard a sermon that could have served as a primary source for someone writing a Doctoral dissertation on the subject of preacher-speak. First, a definition:

   Preacher-speak is the strange collection of arcane phrases, verbal tics, and butchered syntax that comes forth from the mouths of preachers, and then gets repeated on Saturday Night Live every time they do a skit making fun of religion.

Now, a few examples:

 

1.     The magic word that transforms any simple declarative sentence into a question demanding a reply, the word “AMEN”.  For example, “ It sure was cold this morning, AMEN?”, to which the audience feels compelled to either laugh, or answer back with “AMEN’s” of our own. This is a perfect example of a phrase that I have never heard uttered in a non-clerical conversation in my life, but am treated to ad-nauseam on Sunday mornings. Imagine sitting around with your friends watching Downton Abbey, and saying, “That Thomas is one conniving snake, AMEN?” I prefer my preachers to get their “”AMEN’s” the old fashioned way, by earning them! Say something profound, inspiring, illustrate an eternal truth with zeal and poignancy and you’ll get your AMEN. Otherwise, stop begging for them!

 

2.     The word “church” being used instead of “ladies and gentlemen”, or “folks”. This is a relatively new construct first used by ministers of music,” Sing with me, Church”, but now co-opted by preachers. I understand that we, the body of believers are sometimes referred to as THE church, but to drop the pronoun makes the term sound corny and forced resulting in some tortured sentences, “It’s 2013, and I say it’s high time that the CHURCH act like the CHURCH, right CHURCH…AMEN?”

 

3.     The famous, three syllable pronunciation of the word…BELOVED, or be-love-eddd. Again, when is the last time anyone has ever used this word, pronounced this way outside of a church building? “I call this meeting of the board of directors of XYZ company to order, and BE-LOVE-EDDD, we are losing money hand over fist!”

 

4.     Then there’s the plethora of words and phrases meant to convey the familial quality that the church is supposed to have but often does not. Among them are, Brethren, church-family, and a new one I stumbled upon recently, loved ones. My personal opinion is that of you throw these types of descriptive words around about your church, you are compensating for something. And, BRETHREN? Seriously? What about SISTREN?

 

So, anyway, God bless all of our preachers out there who have a terribly difficult job. There exists no amount of money that would induce me to take their job. But, guys, do yourselves and the rest of us a huge favor. Lose the corny formulations and talk like normal people…AMEN?

What A Weekend!

The Belmont University Chamber Singers stormed through Short pump over the weekend. Their humongous charter bus rolled into our unsuspecting neighborhood around 4 in the afternoon Saturday. As they spilled out of the bus with characteristic collegiate energy and enthusiasm, I was reminded of that old Keystone Cop gag from the 20’s where an endless stream of cops keeps pouring out of the same paddy wagon. They kept coming and coming and coming. Our house isn’t small by any definition, but once all 29 of them had filled the place, it felt very tiny. While Pam and her invaluable helpers, Linda and Donna scurried about preparing to feed this invasion, they began what would be an hour long rehearsal in our living room, amazing pre-dinner entertainment, from some supremely talented kids and their manic director, Dr. Deen Entsminger.

Then they all sat down for dinner, served by the most unqualified and poorly trained wait staff ever assembled…ie, er, ME. I took drink orders from three different tables, then promptly lost the order sheet, whereupon chaos broke out and several patrons didn’t get their drinks until chocolate éclair cake was being served. But the kids were so amazingly patient and gracious, not to mention well mannered that it didn’t seem to matter. They ate like they hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks. Afterwards, they all showered us with “thank-yous”, and hugs all around, making it such a pleasure to serve them. After dinner, our wonderful group of volunteers arrived to pick up their assigned kids. It took seven separate families to step up for this assignment, none of whom know any of these kids are have any connection to Belmont University, and yet, here they were with smiles on their faces, opening up their homes for three nights. The four girls that stayed here were about as lovely and adorable a group of young ladies as we could possibly have hoped for.

The four song set they performed yesterday at church was beautiful, and extremely well-received by the folks at Grove, even though it’s not the style of music that we are accustomed to. The weekend couldn’t possibly have gone any better.

When I read the news reports out of our nation’s capital every morning, and bear witness to the colossal mess that my generation and others have made of our world, I am encouraged beyond words to see that we have a very strong bench. Maybe we should just step aside and let them at it, since it’s hardly possible that they could do any worse, and very likely that they would do much better.

So, our thanks to Belmont University, Dr, Deen Entsminger, and the parents of these students for giving us the chance to borrow your kids for the weekend. Well done.

Preparing For Some Great Music And Some Great People

At the Dunnevant estate we are currently bracing for the arrival of the Belmont University Chamber Singers. We have been preparing for this day for over a month now. My wife very deviously used this occasion as an excuse to unleash a fevered redecorating blitz that has consumed our energies and the balances of our bank accounts. Thanks to Dr. Deen Ensminger, Pam’s co-conspirator, I have been forced to hang a hundred pictures, assemble bookcases, and hang new hand towel racks and toilet paper dispensers. We have sanded, painted, scrubbed and scraped every nook and cranny of this house, all so that the Belmont Chamber Singers will feel properly cared for, a choir in which our Son is no longer a member, from a university he no longer attends. Such is the depth of the love and devotion we feel towards this amazing collection of young people and their inspiring leader, Dr. E.

Tonight, all 30 of them, bus driver included, will gather here for a dinner prepared mostly by my wife with substantial help from several friends who were overcome with compassion for our plight. Then we will all go hear them make amazing music at their first concert of the weekend at a location that I can’t recall. Then four of the girls will come back here to spend the first of 3 nights as our guests.

This whole thing brings back a flood of wonderful memories for both of us. For nearly ten years, this was our life, cooking for, entertaining, and caring for hordes of hormonally ravaged young people who would descend upon us with no warning. Somehow, there was always enough food and drink to make it all work, and amazingly enough, we never tired of them. To have the privilege of influence in the life of young people, no matter how small or great is a reward beyond price. Of course, the reason so much money and effort had to be spent to fix the place up for the Chamber Singers was because of the great devastation brought on by ten years of Grovers.

They should arrive in 5 hours or so. Everything is about ready. How lucky are we?

HEADLINES!!!! Coming Soon To A Newspaper Near You

On this, March the first, the first day of Obamageddon, it’s time to gird our loins for the next big calamity. Yes, my fellow Americans, there is always a next big calamity and this one comes at the end of March. It concerns something called a “continuing resolution”. That’s the contraption that this particular Congress of misfits has fashioned together to replace what we’re supposed to have in its place…a budget. Well, this continuing resolution thing expires at the end of March, and without either a budget or a new continuing resolution, the entire government will shut down, making the debt ceiling fight, the fiscal cliff kerfuffle, and the sequestration battle seem like child’s play. Of course the bigger problem for Washington might be the crisis-fatigue of the American people. We have been dragged to the edge of so many cliffs over the past 10 years or so, at some point when something truly horrible is about to happen we’re going to have ignored the warnings out of sheer exhaustion. So, as a public service, I have taken the liberty of designing the headline page for the next crisis. Newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post should consider my suggestions, they can even use them word for word without attribution. Consider it my civic duty.

 

 Government Shutdown Looms!!!

This Time, They’re serious!!

These aren’t just cuts, this is the real thing, no government checks of any kind!

Women and children hardest hit!

Suicide rates expected to soar!

Honest To God…this is the big one!

We’re not screwing around this time!

Entire U.S. Army to be placed on leave

Planes will fall from the sky

Raging fires to spread due to lack of first responders

Welfare checks to dry up March 1…NAACP scared shitless

Wall Street veterans contemplate getting “real Job” once Government freebies end

Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton call government shutdown “racist”

Obama said to be “really, really pissed”

Mitt Romney having the time of his life on huge Romney family vacation in Branson, Missouri

A Public Apology To My Readers

24 hours. If you are a regular reader of this space, you know that I have led the charge in educating you all about the catastrophe that is about to befall us. I have done this because I don’t want any of you to be caught unawares, insufficiently prepared for the coming apocalypse. In this effort I have been aided immeasurably by the White House press office, Mr. Carney, as well as several cabinet members who have detailed the tremendous damage about to be done to our beloved country by the sequester. This morning however, I must confess that a great confusion has washed over me as I read the latest overnight reports coming out of Washington.

My administration sources have almost daily been warning of starving children, teachers receiving pink slips, 700,000 layoffs, dead in the water aircraft carriers, senior citizens thrown out on the streets, long lines at the airports, airplanes spinning out of control for want of air traffic controllers, meat rotting for want of inspectors, crucial life changing scientific discoveries scrambled beyond recognition, and worst of all…delayed tax-refund checks. All of this I have faithfully communicated to you so you would be without excuse come the first of March. But now oddly, less than 24 hours before Armageddon, a confusing inconsistency has emerged, a note of ambivalence, a hedging of bets, a dialing back of rhetoric. Naturally, I am perplexed by the stunning, abrupt change in tone.

Now, we are being told that perhaps, there may not be quite as many (if any) starving children, apparently the total number of teachers receiving those pink slips turns out to be 7 in a county somewhere in West Virginia. Now, we are also being told that maybe the 700,000 number of layoffs might not be immediate after all. Those long lines at the airport may not materialize either, and it appears that money has been scraped together to insure that those air traffic controllers stay on the job, same thing with the aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea. I learn all of this new information from “policy experts” who now are saying that the public may not even notice any impact for weeks or even months. Somebody named Loren Adler of the Bipartisan Policy Center is quoted in The Hill newspaper saying, “The key takeaway is that on March 1^st no doors will be shut, no lights will go out. It will take awhile for these cuts to take effect.”

Well. I certainly feel sheepish. In my morning roundup of news sources about the sequester, gone are adjectives like “massive, draconian, severe, devastating”. Now, less than 24 hours before zero hour, I’m reading descriptive adjectives like “nuanced, complicated, and a new formulation…expectation reassessment”. I simply don’t know what to say. It would appear that I have been duped. Here I’ve been warning all of you about the coming end of days, only to discover at the very last minute that nothing is going to happen on March the first…nothing.

Needless to say, this has been a humbling experience indeed. The notion that responsible people throughout our government would try to manipulate me with false warnings of financial collapse to score cheep political points has been a bitter pill to swallow.

Well, on the bright side, there’s plenty of milk in the fridge, bread in the pantry, and I want have to buy batteries for years.

Batten Down The Hatches!

48 hours and counting. Every day the news gets worse as we slowly discover just how draconian the Great Sequester cuts will be. Now, we know that the ability of meteorologists to predict the weather will be severely constrained, criminals will be turned loose on the public, flights will be delayed, and trains will derail. It’s so much worse than we thought as recently as yesterday. Oh, and we also learned this morning that the 85 billion dollars worth of cuts will actually only be 44 billion in 2013, or 1.2% of all federal spending.

 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “draconian” as follows:

Exceedingly harsh; very severe; unusually cruel

 The second most used adjective by our news media to describe the cuts brought on by sequestration is “massive”, which is defined thusly:

Impressively large or ponderous

 These words are the ones chosen by the media to inform us as to the level of spending cuts about to be unleashed on the Republic…exceedingly harsh, unusually cruel, large and ponderous. A 1.2% reduction in 2103 federal spending, which even when it happens will result in total federal spending in 2013 higher than what we spent in 2012 and a whopping 30% higher than what we spent in 2007, the last year that Obama was not in the White House.

 48 hours from now, I for one will remember exactly where I was when these “massive, draconian” cuts became a reality. When my grandkids ask me where I was when the lights went out all over America, I want to remember.

For Want Of A Nail, The Shoe Was Lost

We have 72 hours left. In three short days, life as we have known it in this country will be forever altered, our pursuit of happiness imperiled for years to come. The very foundation of our republic is about to be shaken. The eyes of the world are upon us, financial centers from London to Seoul, from Istanbul to Montreal are watching, waiting for a miracle.

Children in all 50 states prepare to eat their last meal. Senior citizens are saying their goodbyes in nursing homes from Seattle to Saratoga. 700,000 Americans wait anxiously for their pink slips. Aircraft carriers prepare to drop anchor, mid-mission in the perilous waters of the Mediterranean. For want of fuel, our fighter pilots await their orders to stand down. Scientists in research labs all over the fruited plain, on the cusp of discovery, anguish over seeing their work destroyed. The end of our grand experiment in Democracy is upon us. We are ruined not by invading armies of totalitarian barbarians, not by the ravages of nature and nature’s God. No, we meet our end because of a word that will forever live in infamy…SEQUESTRATION.

Who is to blame for this sorry state of affairs? Does it really matter? These hideous, devastating, egregious, slashing, wanton, extreme, massive, brutal spending cuts are sadly a bipartisan effort. The very thought of forcing a government that in more sane circumstances spends 10 billion dollars a day, (3 billion of which is borrowed from the Chinese), to suddenly get by on a mere 9.76 billion a day is, of course, a national outrage. The carnage done to our way of life by this draconian 2.3% spending meat cleaver is so much sadder because it could have been so easily avoided if only our leaders were worthy of the moment. If only someone in government could have just stood up and said, “An 84 billion dollar spending cut is going to visit all of this destruction upon us? Hell, why don’t we just eliminate the Department of Transportation? Their entire budget is 84 billion, and what in God’s name do they do?”

Alas, for want of a nail, the shoe was lost. To all my fellow citizens out there, Godspeed, and I’ll see you on the other side, March the first.

The Oscar Show

The 85^th Academy Awards show is in the books and I for one would like to thank the Academy for spending 2 hours handing out Oscars for things like production design, makeup, hairstyling, and sound mixing, so the awards for stuff like best actor, best actress and best picture would come on after midnight. Only the inflated egos and hedonism of an industry like Hollywood could take 4 and a half hours to celebrate…itself.

I watched the first 2 hours or so with Pam and Jon, and before hand, just to make it fun, we all printed off our own ballots and voted for everything ourselves. Let me tell you, trying to decide who did the best job of sound editing for 5 movies you haven’t seen isn’t as easy as it looks! Anyway, at least now, we had a little competition going to make the evening more interesting.

I was feeling smugly confident after forging ahead with my brilliant pick of Christoph Waltz as best supporting actor and “Brave” as best animated feature film. But then things fell apart as my voting strategy in the short film categories failed miserably. Since not only had I not seen any of the nominated films,( where does one go to see short films?), I voted for the entry that sounded the most ethnic, the one that perhaps had been made about the most persecuted minority, counting on Hollywood’s propensity to throw bones to minorities by giving them “little” Oscars. Well, “Fresh Guacamole” and “Asad” let me down big time. It was all downhill from there. I did manage to correctly predict the winners for best actor and best actress but that was about the extent of my prognostication skills.

What I did find interesting was that in the entire 2 and a half hours that I watched, I heard not one single political joke, not one snarky putdown of the occupant of the White House. During the administration of every Republican president in my lifetime, it has been an article of faith that the Oscar ceremony was the ideal time for “speaking truth to power”, so actors great and small would routinely take shots at the President over the various injustices that he was trying to inflict on the country, from failing to adequately fund AIDS research to cutting funding for PBS, but this year, nary a peep of complaint from the glitterati. Not only that, I learn this morning, that the First Lady actually made a satellite appearance to present the Oscar for best picture, the shining jewel of the night. Wow! I guess all those fundraising events in Beverly Hills paid off for the President in more ways than one. The most hilarious thought of the night turned out to be trying to imagine any Republican first lady being awarded with such a plum assignment. Yes, here’s Barbara Bush live from Kennebunkport to present the Oscar for best picture, or let’s give it up for Laura Bush as she makes her way to the podium to award Quentin Tarrentino with the Oscar for best director. Hilarious.

Bringing Dad Home

Dad comes home this morning. After one week in the regular hospital and two weeks in rehab, he is finally coming home. His doctors and therapists all declare him to be a “model patient”, and rave about the progress he has made. We have all seen an increase in his energy and enthusiasm in response to the rigorous physical therapy he has undergone. The trick will be whether he can move around well enough and safely enough on his own at home with dependable balance. No rehab on earth can alter the fact that he’s 88. But, Dad is optimistic, so we will be too.

 The great home decorating lollapalooza of 2013 is over! Pam has wrought a miracle transformation of 5 rooms of our house. When Kaitlin got home last night and took the “tour” she was blown away. I sent cool panoramic pictures to Patrick and he was blown away. Even Molly seemed thrilled with the results and all the new things to sniff. As I looked at the final product it occurred to me that Pam is one of those people about which others often say, “You know, she could do that for a living”. In Pam’s case, “that” would be anything that she becomes interested in and sets her mind to do. Whether it’s baking cake pops, interior design, scrapbooking, children’s church, planning an elegant party, or just being a gracious hostess, she does nothing haphazardly, nothing is left to chance, everything has to be perfect, and usually is. Maybe she does need a “chic nook”.

 For the past month or so I’ve been working on a novel, (don’t worry, I won’t quit my day job). I wrote one twenty years ago that’s still in the bottom drawer of my night stand, so this is a purely therapeutic, and self indulgent exercise. But I must say, it’s also a blast. I’ve managed to fashion an entirely separate world of my own design, populating it with characters that I care about in some strange paternalistic way. The story involves the general themes of gambling, luck, clairvoyance, the power of dreams, a tragic romance, suicide and redemption. As a genre I suppose it would be classified as a psychological thriller. It’s been great fun, and I have no idea yet what will happen next, and won’t until it appears on the screen when I write. Kinda cool.

Tom Wolfe Is The Man

                                                                                  

One of my literary heroes of the past thirty years or so has been Tom Wolfe, he of the brilliantly tailored white suits and Richmond heritage. My first taste of Wolfe was his 1979 book, The Right Stuff about the Apollo astronauts. Then I read his first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities in the late 80’s and was mesmerized by his craft as a writer. Then I had to wait 11 years for him to research and write the fabulous, A Man in Full. For some reason unknown to me, I didn’t read I Am Charlotte Simmons when it was published in 2004, so I bought the i-book version  a couple of days ago for $9.99 and have been blazing through it ever since. I was so inspired to read Simmons because of the recent release of his fourth novel, Back to Blood.

I Am Charlotte Simmons is not an easy breezy read. It’s depiction of the often debased life of the modern American undergraduate experience, while true enough, comes awfully close to being merely raunchy. Its lurid portrayal of sexual debauchery seems excessively and unnecessarily descriptive for my taste. But the way Wolfe captures the cloistered arrogance of academia is worth putting up with the occasionally over the top raunchiness.

Can’t wait for Back to Blood, a book Wolfe publishes seven months after his 81^st birthday. My man, Tom.

My Barnyard Manure Detector Is Going Off

Fresh off his golf vacation in Florida, the President yesterday breathlessly intoned that the looming sequester was poised to visit untold devastation on our nation. A government with a 3.6 trillion dollar budget is about to be eviscerated by an 85 billion dollar cut.

A mere ten years ago, this same government managed to get by on only 2.2 trillion dollars of spending. That’s a 68% increase in the budget in ten years. And yet this government will be brought to its knees by a 2.3% decrease in spending?

Here’s a question for you. Has your income increased 68% in the last ten years? I did the numbers for the Dunnevant family and found that our family income has increased roughly 28% since 2003. Not bad, but compared to my government, I’m an underachieving hack. Second question, how many of you would be thrust into economic Armageddon if you were forced to reduce your yearly spending by 2.3%?

So, if the President and his party are to be believed, in 9 short days, our very way of life will be plunged into a desperate struggle for survival. Children will starve; old folks will be cast out into the mean streets, millions will lose their jobs, infrastructure will collapse before our very eyes, our air and water will instantly be polluted beyond recognition, our meat won’t get inspected, but worst of all, no one will be able to answer our tax questions at the IRS, all of this calamity because 85 billion dollars will have been trimmed from our 3.6 trillion dollar government. 85 billion, or put another way, the amount of money that our government spends every eight days.

We are being asked to believe that a sequester that cuts the equivalent of a little over one week’s spending will plunge us all back into the Middle Ages. Hmmm.

Call me skeptical.

The Birth Of A Man-Cave

For the better part of a month now, we have been in the process of remaking the upstairs of our house. I say “we”, when it would be more accurate to say “Pam”. It’s not that I am uninterested in the project or that I disapprove of anything that has been done; rather, I am more like a willful participant in Pam’s vision. My contribution so far has been to respond, ”I love it”, when asked, “What do you think of this?” This system has worked beautifully, producing as it has, a complete remake of the kids’ wing of the house. The new paint and decorating touches make that end of the house nearly unrecognizable, leaving barely any evidence that we ever actually had kids. That’s not entirely fair, of course. Kaitlin and Patrick will always own their end of the house. It’s just that everything over there looks so…clean, a marked contrast to the years when they ran the place.

Now I’m told that I need to take the lead in redecorating my little office from where I am typing this blog. I have been given the liberty to create a “man-cave” out of the place, which sounds wonderful, but from the size of it, I think that the word “cave” is a bit too grand. But a “man-closet” sounds terrible, even effeminate, so Man-Cave, with capital letters, it shall be.

First order of business will be to clean out the mountain of official marriage paperwork. These are the documents, photographs, paper memorabilia and assorted debris which 29 years of a happy life produce. On the shelf above me are 9 picture albums. On the cloth board in front of me are no less than 22 pictures pinned up with thumbtacks, the unfortunate ones who never made it into frames, but if thrown away by yours truly might insure that year thirty never comes. To my right hangs evidence of our 13 free resort vacations courtesy of Life of Virginia from 1989 to 2001. To my left is a shelf dominated by as random a collection of “Pam stuff” as can be imagined. This particular shelf is so precarious, so filled with danger, so fraught with peril; no amount of money could induce me to touch it. But this particular shelf is a garden of delight compared to what lies behind the doors directly behind me in the left corner of my office. Here lies that space that shall not be named. It is the “closet of doom”, containing as it does, Pam’s filing cabinet from hell. In this ordinary looking tan metal cabinet there are four drawers. On the doors of the top three are affixed aqua colored sticky notes. Drawer number one, “KIDS church”, drawer number two, “Scrapping Pics”, and door number three, ”Travel”.  Door number four has no label, making its contents too terrible to contemplate. The chances of me touching this filing cabinet are about as high as the chances that I will win the gold medal in the decathlon in the 2016 Olympics.

Once proper care has been taken in organizing this minefield, I will then move on to the business of painting, buying furniture and all the accompanying nick-nackery so essential to modern decorating. When completed, I will publish a photograph of the results. I am told that the room should reflect my tastes and sensitivities. Hmmm. Maybe a Blazing Saddles theme with a Fathead of Cleavon Little, or perhaps a baseball theme with a simulated pitcher’s mound in the corner with real dirt!

I’m going to drive Pam crazy.

The Most Disgusting Blog Topic Ever

I have written before in this space of my wretched opinion of the month of February. Nothing that has transpired in the 2013 edition has done anything to elevate my views of this miserable month. This morning I see that on Thursday we can look forward to heavy rain and 40 degrees. Peachy.

Spring training has begun, the only bright spot that occurs during this festival of dreariness. I now get to read baseball gossip each morning, my lifeline to sanity. There was a professional basketball All-Star game yesterday I’m told, and it appears that a woman has won the poll for the Daytona 500. I can hardly contain myself.

The big event for me every February is a story that never gets told, largely because it is something that is seldom mentioned in polite conversation. But, if I am ever to write on this subject, February would be the logical choice. Yes, I am referring to the annual mid-winter dog-poop removal project, or AMDPR for short.

Dog owners in this audience know the drill. All year we go out into the back yard every Friday or Saturday, usually right before cutting the grass, to remove the week’s damage. It is a mundane task requiring only 10 minutes, rubber gloves and a grocery bag. But then winter comes. The weather gets bad, the back yard becomes a bog, so the job goes undone…for weeks and weeks. Finally, once the middle of February rolls around, it takes the dog 15 minutes to find a bare spot. Something has to be done. So, on the most favorable day available, you gird your loins, and begin the hour long ordeal of filling a 45 gallon garden leaf bag with 8 weeks’ worth of Fido’s bowel movements.

This is the only time of the year where the great old joke about dog-poop and women doesn’t apply, since…what, wait…you haven’t heard that joke? What do women and dog poop have in common? The older they are the easier they are to pick up…that doesn’t apply during AMDPR, since the opposite is true. Eight weeks of exposure to the elements does horrible things to canine feces, let me tell you. But there’s a job to do, so you trudge on, reminding yourself, that you really do love your dog, and spring is on it’s way.

In a few short weeks this will all be over. The grass will begin to grow, the birds will begin to sing, tulips will bloom and February will be but a hideous memory. Hopefully by then I will be able to find more noble topics to write about.

Synonymetry

Welcome, students to today’s edition of Vocabulary Enhancement Training. As you know, in this class we take quotations from famous people, pick out phrases, and try to come up with other, perhaps more creative ways to communicate the same meaning…sort of advanced synonymetry…if you will.

So, today’s quote comes from Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who, when told that if the sequestration went through, Congressmen and women would also get a pay cut, responded that a paycut would be “beneath the dignity of a congressman’s job”. Now, I want us to concentrate on the phrase, “dignity of a Congressman”.

What are some other ways that we can say the same thing more creatively, without changing the original meaning? Anyone?

 “How about instead of “dignity of a congressman”, we use…chastity of a prostitute?”

Excellent!

“I’ve got one! “scruples of a banker”.

Perfect!

“self-control of a toddler?”

Wonderful!

“soft hands of a brick layer?”

Beautiful! Class, I must say I’m overwhelmed with your responses today.

“Basketball skills of a white midget?”

That’s very creative, but let’s try to keep race out of our language. Oh, and the term “midget” might be seen as pejorative towards the vertically challenged. Bill? You’ve been awfully quiet today. Do you have any ideas on our topic?

Bill: “dignity of a congressman”? That’s a tough one. How about the efficiency of the DMV, or the Friendliness of the IRS, or maybe the fidelity of Bill Clinton?

All of those are excellent! Class, you have outdone yourselves today. Ok, next week our phrase will be “audacity of hope”.

Dad's Valentine's Day

Last night after a marvelous dinner that featured the insanely beautiful and delicious dessert pictured above, my wife prepared a special Valentine's plate for my Dad. There was a helium filled balloon with a Valentine's greeting and a giant picture of sugar cookies. Pam picked that one because it reminded her of the ones Mom used to make for the kids every Valentine's Day. She also bought a package of heart-shaped Reeses peanut butter cups. Then she placed the delectable treat in the picture above underneath a clear cake bowl and off we went to the hospital to see Dad.

When we first arrived he was laying back in his bed looking particularly tired after his second full day of rehab, but as soon as he saw this cake, he perked up. When asked if he wanted to eat it now or wait until later he answered, "Give me that fork!". He sat up and plowed through it with unrestrained glee, and as is his practice, cleaned the plate. For the rest of our visit, Dad was animated, his voice clear and strong, demonstrating once again the value of a sugar rush. It's been 9 days now since he first was admitted to the hospital and last night was the best he has looked. I credit my wife's gift of thoughtfulness, her cheerful love for Dad, and her culinary skills for his turnaround.

 

My "Paying-For" Problem

 Nancy Pelosi, the remarkably well-preserved former Speaker of the House, has contributed mightily to the ongoing debate about the 6 trillion dollar debt explosion we have endured over the last 4 and a half years. Appearing on Fox News, she told Chris Wallace that it was a “false argument to say we have a spending problem, when in fact we have a budget deficit problem.” To make it even more clear Rep. Steny Hoyer added this valuable insight, “we don’t have a spending problem, we have a paying for problem.”

Crickets.

Far be it from me, a mere business owner who over a thirty year career has managed to overdraw his checking account only once, to question two savvy veteran politicians, but I would say that if you have spent 6 Trillion dollars more than you have collected over 4 and a half years, you have a problem that sure looks and sounds like it has something to do with spending. But if Nancy and Steny and President Obama are convinced that our financial problems have nothing to do with spending too much money, well then, it must be true. I do wonder though how this explanation would hold up down at my bank:

 Wells Fargo Banker:  Mr. Dunnevant, thank you for coming in this morning. We have a problem with your business checking account. It seems that over the weekend you wrote three checks, one to the Melting Pot for $158, another to the Apple Store for $3205, and a third to Martins for $219. However, you only had $2100 in your account, so we have a problem.

Me:  A problem? What? I don’t understand.

Wells Fargo Banker:  Well, generally speaking, one needs to have sufficient funds in an account to cover checks written. In your case, you spent $1482 more than your balance, so there’s a spending problem.

Me:  No, no. You don’t seem to understand. I don’t have a spending problem. It’s more like a deficit problem.

Wells Fargo Banker:……………yes…but that’s pretty much the same thing.

Me:  More specifically, I don’t really have a spending problem as much as I have a paying for problem.

Wells Fargo Banker:  Wait…what?

Me:  Here’s the thing. Yes, my accounts seem to be out of money, but just because I’m broke doesn’t mean I can just stop making investments in my business. That computer I bought over the weekend is going to pay huge dividends down the road in improved efficiency at the office.

Wells Fargo Banker:  I’m sure it will, but Mr. Dunnevant, you are $1482 overdrawn and I will have to charge you $150 for the bounced checks.

Me:  Fine, just put it on my tab. One of my kids will be getting married at some point and then it won’t be long before I’ll have a grandchild. He’ll be good for it, I’m sure.

We are being governed by morons.