April Fool’s Day celebrates humor that’s devoid of wit; it brings out all of the schmucks, especially the marketers who try to “win” the day with a viral campaign.
Pranks just don’t translate well online.
I miss the analog age of April Fool’s Day – back when you could shove a friend into a pool without first asking if he had his phone on him. Read More
Participating in school musicals is the most on-point preparation I’ve had for parenting.
They prepared me for the clunky emotional transitions that have me spontaneously bursting into song whenever it seems like the baby might cry.
I always found it peculiar when townspeople in musicals started bouncing up and down to ramp up a song from the leading man, but then I had a baby and started immediately bouncing her on my knee at the slightest sign of a furrowed brow.
Oh, we’ve got trouble my friend, right here in infant city. Read More
If my cats saw a pet carrier, they knew they were going to the vet.
Yet when my baby sees her car seat she just sits there trying to figure out what the wiggly things are connected to her hand. Spoiler alert: they’re fingers. Read More
St. Patrick’s Day is one of the few remaining holidays that isn’t protested like the way human rights activists protest Columbus Day, antislavery crusaders protest President’s Day, or light sleepers protest Martin Luther King Jr.’s having a dream.
St. Patrick’s Day is the rare holiday that tries to unify everyone around an ethnicity whether they actually have it or not. Read More
Snowstorms dominate Connecticut culture. Whereas other states focus on economic competitiveness or raising residents’ quality of life, we get fired up about local weather forecasts.
The government requires all men over the age of fifty to be proficient in reading doppler radar charts with hour-by-hour precipitation breakdowns. Read More
Since I just had my first child, this week’s column features humorous bits cut from older articles to buy me another week while seeming like I’m offering fresh content. Read More
An essential truth of modern life is that people are stupider when I’m in a bad mood. This is especially true inside my local grocery store.
I’m not sure how the entire store’s behavior is calibrated to my mood, but the correlation cannot be denied. My local grocery store has the cosmic accuracy of a thousand mood rings. I can chart my emotional state by carefully watching other people’s behavior while I’m shopping. Read More
A year or two back, I started actively responding to pleasantries that people don’t really mean to offer.
Most people mindlessly say “thank you,” “excuse me,” “sorry,” or any number of other pleasantries without realizing that they’re engaging in small signs of submissiveness. We can call them micro-submissions. Read More
I’ve been full of various thoughts and anxieties leading up to my wife Jenny’s c-section scheduled for Tuesday morning.
The vast majority of them revolve around the health and well-being of my wife and daughter, which brings me some relief because that proves I’m not a narcissist. Although having that thought makes me wonder, again, if perhaps I am. Read More
The Super Bowl is the closest thing we have to a national office party. Not a classy party either with a private room in the back of a restaurant or an after-hours shindig with spouses.
The Super Bowl is more like a low-budget office party that takes place during normal business hours so that it seems like leisure time, but you really aren’t free to leave. Read More