I’m taking a break.

It’s time for me to scroll off your screen and into the sunset to wherever fate takes me next.

Looking back on the 200 weeks since I started, it’s amazing how much my life has changed.

For starters, I’ve conceived and fathered two kids, quit my job to be a stay-at-home dad, survived the first several waves of a global pandemic, bought a “new” house while selling my old house, and got a remote control from my cable company that lets me talk to it (even though it hears me wrong half the time).

200 weeks is a long time; 3.84 years.

It’s significantly longer than other transformative experiences in my life.

I’ve only been a dad for 134 weeks, though it feels like SO MUCH longer.

It took me 194 weeks to graduate from college but only 140 to graduate from law school.

I also lived in Austin, Texas for 145 weeks, which is just the right amount of time to still get out with your soul (and liver) intact.

I performed stand up comedy throughout that time in Austin. It was an amazing creative outlet but also an incredible time suck.

In 2011, I spent my 31st birthday on 6th Street outside The Velveeta Room explaining to family and friends who called me why spending the evening alone waiting to go up around midnight at an open mic was how I wanted to celebrate.

Exactly one year later I was the paid month-long host of that same open mic and it felt like a major accomplishment, though it was not.

I’ve leaned on those experiences heavily while writing this column to justify the countless hours I poured into the work.

There is an intangible but deeply satisfying meaning I get from bringing happiness into other people’s lives, even if just for a fleeting moment.

Back then I thought nothing about waiting for two or three hours to perform five minutes of material for a dozen disinterested people.

Other times, I’d host or open for paying audiences on actual shows. And on a few rare occasions I performed on big stages in front of big audiences primed to cheer.

All of those crowds were dwarfed by the number of people I could reach here with just a little cross-promotion to subject-matter-friendly places on the Internet.

My most popular column, I Can’t Stop Comparing My Newborn Baby to a Cat, still gets appreciative comments in parenting forums every time it comes up, though I haven’t had much time for cross-promotion lately.

Since publishing my first column, I’ve been honored to be republished on places like the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, Scary Mommy, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists blog, every Hearst newspaper in Connecticut, and many other subject-specific blogs, Facebook groups, and Reddit threads.

I wrote a very silly column about being uncomfortable using a teenage boy’s shower and a Pulitzer Prize winner had to hand me an award for it. That will always be a source of immense pride for me.

It also brings me great pleasure that this website is a leading Google search return for some pretty awesome (though offbeat) queries like “Buddy the Beefalo,” “best harmonica players,” and “toddler Olympics.”

And I absolutely love that the most consistent Google click-throughs this site gets is for the search, “beer snobs are the worst.”

But it hasn’t only been silly. Some of my more sentimental pieces gained traction too.

Readers of every Hearst newspaper in Connecticut may have opened their Thanksgiving newspapers last year seeking Black Friday coupons, but they also found my column, When the Holidays Don’t Feel Right, as one of three featured in the opinion section that day.

It was extremely validating to finally answer the age-old question: what do Connecticut’s Governor, a Catholic Bishop, and Chris Gaffney all have in common.

Writing is how I process things.

Whether it’s formulating hopes for the future, articulating my love for my family, processing grief, or pondering the meaning of life and whether my life has provided enough value – writing provides the clarity I need to make sense of it all.

Ruminating isn’t enough on its own.

My fickle thoughts flitter between emotions and get swept away in flash floods of cognition spinning after every intuition and perception until they wash ashore like Gilligan and bumble somewhat humorously about looking for the Professor and Mary Ann.

Writing anchors my thoughts providing the framework to flesh out my thoughts and pursue my own truths. Having found this safe harbor I cannot imagine ever again riding through a storm unmoored.

Coupling that with my lifelong need for public affirmation, I have no doubt that I’ll be back. Somehow, in some way, though it won’t be very soon.

In the meantime, please feel free to pursue the archives of 200 humor columns.

You can sort in the sidebar menu by topic or by date. The categories are: family, holiday, home & garden, musings, parenting, pop culture, and society.

Stay subscribed if you want to hear from me. I’ll send periodic updates when the time feels right.

Finally, thank you to everyone who’s spent some time with me over the past 200 weeks, especially those who emailed or commented with encouraging words and shared their views.

And, of course, the biggest thanks go to my wife and kids who’ve had to deal with my wandering away to jot things down or sneaking away to my office for long stretches of time.

With the number of unfinished projects sitting on my desktop, that probably won’t change, but it might be a little different.

I’ve gotten so much out of writing this column from sharpening my views and developing my “writing voice,” to validating my belief that there’s inherent value in every part of our shared experience.

I figure if I can write a 650-word Ode to Paper Towels and actually gain subscribers at least a few others feel the same way.

There is so much more that unites us than divides us and all of it is cause for celebration or at least a tiny chuckle before scrolling on to the next adventure.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post After 200 Consecutive Weekly Columns, It’s Time for Something New appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

Once that’s done we’ll have to repaint the cathedral ceiling in the living room where there’s water damage. That’s annoying because we just painted the entire room ten months ago when we first moved in.

And our pool needs resurfacing.

We negotiated a credit for half of that cost after the inspection but we spent that money on repairs that weren’t disclosed or caught in the inspection: fixing the sewer line and waterproofing a “finished” room in the basement.

Though we’ve had WAY more repairs than anticipated in our first year living in our “new” home, we’re happy here.

Each new obstacle brings frustration but also offers us another chance to put our stamp on the forever home we’re creating for our family.

So we didn’t get a turn-key ready home: there are worse things.

If my kids are going to realize the kind of future I hope for them with the sort of values I’ll instill in them, we’ll have to work at it. Sometimes together, other times alone, but always in tandem for the good of the household.

My whole mentality changed once we decided this was our “forever home.” We moved in planning to spend significant time and resources redesigning things and knowing it would be a decades-long process to make this the home we know it can be.

Despite its flaws, it’s clear this house has been well-loved by several generations before us.

Incredible thought was put into both the original design and the addition, as well as the landscaping, drainage, and outdoor entertainment spaces.

Clearly, some mistakes were also made and some other things just no longer fit the needs of a modern family. Like the 8-track player built into my basement wall.

For now, our visitors can appreciate the beauty of a few select rooms we’ve updated and then magically transport themselves back 40 years simply by walking into any bathroom.

Why do I own a brown bathtub and oddly contoured toilet? Nobody knows.

It’s like seeing a pay phone on the side of the road. We know WHY it was put there but it’s surprising that it’s STILL there.

I’m not accountable for the decisions the previous owners made but I’m definitely responsible for what happens going forward and we’re tackling each obstacle head on as our resources allow.

It’s easy to get discouraged when things go wrong (and it absolutely isn’t your fault) but I refuse to let negativity and cynicism become defining characteristics of my children’s childhoods.

By moving into a house that clearly needs work while bringing two kids into a world that clearly needs work, my wife and I are the living embodiment of the poem Good Bones by Maggie Smith, which reads in part:

Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of our home lately. Not just our new house but our town, our state, our country, and world.

It’s hard not to when the summer of hope so clearly boomeranged back towards despair.

We’ve been defeated in Afghanistan. Hospitals in some of our major cities are rationing care. California is burning. Soldiers’ families are grieving. Authoritarianism is on the rise.

So we didn’t get a turn-key ready world: there are worse things.

I refuse to let negativity and cynicism become defining characteristics of my children’s childhoods.

That’s why, after 11 blissful years out of local politics, I’ve stepped back in as a candidate for the Board of Education. It wasn’t an easy decision to make due to the highly-charged issues that lay ahead in this deeply divided time.

If our kids are going to realize the kind of future we hope for them, we’ll have to work at it. Sometimes together, other times alone, but always in tandem for the good of us all.

It’s going to take a lot of work, but our kids need a home. Luckily, we have one with good bones.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post Our Home Still has Good Bones appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

I don’t remember her saying it very often when we were growing up but it became her refrain after her pancreatic cancer diagnosis when our visits increased in frequency and became less about seeing old friends and more about spending time together as a family.

At the time I figured Mom meant that she loved having a house full of family and hearing happy sounds instead of silence as she drifted off to sleep at night.

But now that my seven-month-old son is developing a personality of his own, I’m starting to understand what Mom actually meant.

There’s nothing else I’ve experienced in life that quite matches the experience of seeing my baby’s face light up when he sees his two-and-a-half-year-old sister.

It definitely melts my heart when he reacts to seeing either my wife or I that way, but part of my brain always rationalizes that as a natural response any baby has for their caregiver.

I can’t use that same explanation for his reaction to his sister.

Sure she gives him toys from time to time but she also snatches them out of his hands just as often. And while she will help give him bottles, she also smushes the entire nipple into his face making it nearly impossible to actually drink.

Because of this, the love in his heart for her feels more pure to me.

My baby may or may not only love Mama and Dada because of the things we do for him but he clearly loves his sister DESPITE the things she does to him. That’s pretty awesome.

The wildest thing about having a second kid is watching the development of a sibling relationship.

It helps that my daughter is often just as excited to see the baby as he is to see her.

She definitely gets annoyed with him sometimes, but if I’m not carrying him when I get her in the morning, it’s the first thing she asks about (followed immediately by wanting her milk).

I know things are going to change eventually, but right now it’s perfect.

She’s teaching him to crawl and loves to stand behind me shaking a rattle shouting, “come to Dada, baby.”

When he eats baby food in his high chair she wants to sit next to him in a booster chair eating yogurt so he can see her using a spoon and she can see him drooling all over the bib she insists on picking out for him before each meal.

I’m constantly wondering how much longer this can last.

A little piece of my heart broke when a friend of mine described her challenges raising a 13-year-old daughter and it occurred to me that when my daughter hits that incredibly vulnerable and difficult portion of her life she’ll be saddled with having an 11-year-old little brother.

“My God,” I thought to myself, “What have I done? Nobody should have to be burdened with an 11-year-old little brother, especially an 8th grade girl.”

Though maybe if I cross my fingers and close my eyes, wish upon a shooting star, or blow an eyelash off a ladybug, they’ll find a way to navigate those years together as siblings and best friends.

Or maybe I’ll just have to settle as Mom did for enjoying those fleeting moments, late at night when everyone’s feeling silly, where the house echoes with their laughs and our house feels like a home.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post I Finally Understand Mom’s Greatest Joy appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

I love my kids (2.5 year old daughter and 6-month-old son) with all of my heart, but post-bedtime life is just a little bit easier.

Consider this: I’ve never once told my wife, “Let’s wake the kids up a little bit early today, we could use a break.”

In an earlier column, I described the universal exhale all parents make after closing their kid’s bedroom door for (what you hope is the last time of) the night as a “restorative sigh that feeds tired parents’ souls.”

If you don’t have kids, the best analogy I can use is the moment after a landing airplane safely slows to taxiing speed on the runway. And not after a smooth flight.

After a flight with at least three bursts of turbulence that not only caused the pilot to turn the seatbelt sign back on, but also had the flight attendant scurry to the back with an abrupt but not panicked stride.

The sort of landing where at least five passengers burst into applause including one who’s clearly dumbfounded when the other people in her row don’t join.

That exhalation sheds an alertness-based tension you weren’t even aware you had until you felt it’s release.

I hesitate to immediately dive into a new activity once the kids are in bed because it’s still too fresh.

Knowing I could be immediately sucked right back into either kid’s room, I typically collapse onto my couch and scroll through my phone, then get shocked at how quickly the night is passing when I next look up forty minutes later.

It takes a good-sized buffer between my pre-kid-bedtime and post-kid-bedtime lives just to regroup. It’s the closest thing to being “off duty” I get outside of the one hour a month I spend going to get a haircut.

When we were expecting our first child and I imagined my life as a stay-at-home dad, I had big plans for all of the things I’d get done during nap times, but naps aren’t bedtime and my kids know it.

My 6-month-old son never demands to be held all night long but at least once a week he makes it clear that if I want him to nap, I’d better clear my schedule and get comfortable in our La-z-boy rocker.

My daughter keeps moving in and out of “I don’t need a nap” phases but my sanity requires it so I’m going to keep grinding out the naptime routine for as long as possible.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done some awesome things during my kids’ naps. Once I even assembled an entire lawn mower AND a standing cooler cart during the same simultaneous nap!

But I can never depend on their naps lining up. That’s why I never EVER take it for granted when I’m able to get their daytime snoozes to overlap.

With one kid I could plan on accomplishing basic things during nap time like showering or eating. But, with two, I can only assign that time to things I’d like to do but usually don’t actually get to do, like: reading the newspaper, writing, or refilling the ice cube trays.

Our naps aren’t defined well enough like bedtime. They miss the natural boundaries that natural darkness provides.

Blackout curtains and white noise machines are great but even a two-year-old can see through their ruse on a bright summer day with birds singing outside and trucks clattering past the windows every few minutes.

Try as I may to convince them (and myself) otherwise, there’s only one bedtime a day. That’s why it feels so nice when you stick the landing.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post Naps Aren’t Bedtime and My Kids Know It appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

Lately every time I look at her I just hear The Steve Miller Band singing “time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future. (doo doo doo doo)”

Her vocabulary has exploded. She understands jokes. She’s formed her own free will and has an entire personality of her own.

We have conversations, which is crazy, because it means she’s really piecing things together.

Every single one of those things fills me with immeasurable pride but also carries a little bit of sadness and an undercurrent of panic.

Parenting a toddler is like watching the water crest then spill over the top of a clogged toilet before realizing there is no emergency shut off valve.

It doesn’t help that my son just turned six-months-old and we’ve started saying goodbye to things it feels like he should still need like the bassinet, newborn seat attachments, and a liquid-only diet.

How, with one kid in a booster seat and another in a high chair, am I suddenly the shortest person sitting at my dining room table?

It’s all just happening so fast.

Similarly, how is it that my cousin’s kid, who was born while I was in college, is now in college?

And that another cousin’s kid whose wedding I went to while I was in college, is starting college this month?

College used to be the pinnacle of adulthood but now it’s just a marking period that we might as well just round up to twenty. Which, through another cruel twist of fate, is now less than half of my age.

I’m worried that I’m running out of time.

Warning signs are everywhere from the leaves showing up in my pool to the sounds popping out of my knees every time I use the stairs.

I thought about contacting the guy who installed our bedroom floor to ask why the floors made so much noise before I realized it wasn’t the floor creaking when I wake up every morning, but me.

Even the moon is on it. It shifts from waxing to waning and from full to new in the blink of an eye instead of in the provided 28-30 days.

No sooner do I notice how big a full moon looks than the following day there’s barely any left. Every time I see the moon it’s shifted significantly more than it should have. The moon I grew up with took forever to turn full again.

I know because I tracked it for a while when I was a kid, which is exactly the sort of thing you do when you’ve got plenty of time to spare.

It’s said that time accelerates as you age.

If that’s true, I feel like Lucy Ricardo shoveling conveyor-belt chocolates into my chef’s hat, probably because I’m old enough to know that reference (even if only from reruns).

I now say things like “I can’t believe it’s already August,” or “how are we already halfway through June,” with the same predictable regularity that I used to say things like, “I’m SO BORED!” or “are we there yet!?”

It’s also said that when it comes to parenting babies or small children, the days are long but the years are short.

Truer words may never have been spoken.

What’s left unsaid, however, is how disorienting it feels comparing and contrasting the two.

At least the changing seasons have built-in reference points. What makes raising a child so disorienting is that I literally don’t know what to expect next.

I just know it’s coming, whether I’m ready or not.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post Like a Toddler in a Bathtub, Time Keeps on Slipping appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

I’ve seen them from some pretty interesting places.

My favorite was from a cottage dug into the shore of Cayuga Lake in upstate New York.

My buddy and I watched a wall of rain make its way frame by frame across the water then to the shore and across the deck until it pelted the tin roof above our heads with one ping, followed by two, then three, then ten thousand all at once as it unleashed on us with surprising intensity.

We heard branches crashing all around us and wondered aloud how quickly it would pass (this was before smartphones).

After just a few minutes it was gone.

We felt like heroes dragging a fallen tree out of the road afterwards and barely considered what might’ve happened had it been any of the trees towering above the cottage where we watched.

I loved the intensity of Texas storms watched from my first-floor apartment’s patio in Austin. Wild flighting flashes would illuminate the courtyard pool at night as if it were the middle of the day.

I briefly had a private office on the top floor of one of New Haven, Connecticut’s tallest office buildings and will never forget the amazing storm I saw there. Lightning streaking across the horizon seemingly at face level; I felt the building swaying ever-so-slightly with each wind gust.

My client did not get their money’s worth out of me for that billable hour but the storm temporarily washed the icky feeling off of me from working in banking law.

As a child I once rode with my Mom and two brothers through the Florida everglades in a downpour and saw true panic in Mom who was scared to keep driving but even more scared of pulling to the side where we could just as easily be washed away.

I’m not sure if she was more worried about the gators or the drowning.

That one was a little intense for me.

The best summer storms are the ones witnessed with a feeling of safety but intense enough to make you feel like you’ve got a little skin in the game.

My current perch, in a house overlooking a reservoir where lightning cracks across the horizon backlighting the hills on the other side, is a pretty good one.

A good storm raises the hair on the back of your neck a few times but stops short of tensing up your shoulders.

It’s hearing the wind creak over the roof and rafters of your home without the force of a driving storm that makes you move away from glass windows.

There is a fine line between walking your property’s perimeter to look for sticks and branches or checking on downed wires and to see that everything’s still standing.

A good storm moves fast.

It’s not a wash out of a day where the kids sing “Rain rain go away,” or The Cat and the Hat comes for a visit.

It’s an intense energy burst where the clouds ripple with electricity and the thunder rolls in waves across the horizon, through your feet and up your spine.

You don’t merely hear the thunder, you feel it reverberate until the earth absorbs it and spits out it’s worms as a sacrifice to birds, the guardians of the skies.

That’s why birds singing are the universal sound of “all clear.”

My two-and-a-half-year-old daughter is starting to mirror my excitement for summer storms.

Thunder used to scare her but now she’s curious enough to come watch a storm fall on the reservoir through our bedroom floor to ceiling windows.

She sits on the shin-high window ledge commenting on everything she sees and jumps at each clap of thunder.

It’s all a show for her and hopefully never becomes true cause for alarm. No matter what she’s doing, she’s always game to join me when I ask her to stop and come watch a summer storm with me.

I look forward to her someday being comfortable enough to come out with me to the garage or underneath our covered gazebo to feel the changes in the atmosphere itself.

Life is full of so many twists, turns, and challenges right now that it’s easy to view a common summer storm as one of them and reach for your favorite streaming app or distraction when your plans get upended.

Especially if you live in the northeast this summer where we’re getting them nearly every day.

But if you have the time, stop and watch a storm roll in this summer. You just might find a pretty good show that you can’t go back to binge later.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post Stopping to Watch a Summer Storm appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

My still-forming thirteen-year-old brain hadn’t yet developed a resistance to making a spectacle of myself so I took the stage with unwarranted bravado.

The second my pre-pubescent voice growled the words “you ain’t nothing but a hound dog” into the mic, the audience was mine.

When I added in the twists and pelvic thrusts, the audience roared in approval.

Were some of them laughing at me? Almost certainly.

Most of them, most likely.

But it didn’t phase me because I was having so much fun. They offered a microphone and I grabbed it. Unpolished and unrehearsed to share my joy with the world.

I sang a lot as a child, especially in the summer.

Nearly every moment from the beginning of July to the end was spent learning, memorizing, practicing and rehearsing songs for a big summer musical we put on through the school.

Where I really let it rip was on the bike rides to and from rehearsal thinking I was moving too fast for anybody to hear me well. This, of course, was an illusion.

Though the wind passing by my ears may have muffled the sound to me, anyone in earshot certainly heard me belting out show tunes with all of my might.

I can’t help but wonder what the poor joggers and dog-walking neighbors must have thought as a chubby kid with acne came whistling past singing, “Oh what a beautiful morning,” at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

By my mid-teens, however, the singing stopped.

I became more inhibited.

Aware that I wasn’t a particularly good singer, I decided not to do it publicly anymore even though it was one of my biggest sources of joy.

For the twenty years that followed that source of joy became a source of apprehension.

Once in my late twenties as part of a bar trivia night my team had to sing Yellow Submarine for some reason and I wanted to melt into the floor.

I still won’t sing at church because I live in Connecticut where congregations sing in a collective whisper and I am incapable of whisper singing so I just stand there thumbing through the hymnal listening to the organ music drown out a tiny sea of even tinier voices.

But now, the singing’s back.

Singing has become a big part of my life again since becoming a stay-at-home dad.

Not just the private songs I sing to get the baby to stop crying, but the public displays at story times in libraries and parks throughout my community.

Most people set aside their singing vulnerabilities for kids songs.

The only hesitation I’ve ever heard from other parents at story time is at the Durham Library’s Mother Goose story time when Miss Diana’s “Where is Thumbkin” rendition includes unabashedly going all-in on finding Middleman.

Let’s just say that “Two Little Blue Birds” aren’t the only birds flying around the Durham Library’s basement classroom on Monday mornings.

When the children’s librarian says that my kids will pick up and reflect the enthusiasm I have towards a class, I take her at her word.

That’s why I belt out that the wheels on the bus go “round and round,” and lean into the demonstration that when cows wake up in the morning they always say, “moo moo!”

I’m trying to bring this energy into other parts of my life.

Yoko Ono didn’t let an utter lack of talent stop her from doing duets with the most successful singer of all time so why should it should stop me from belting out “the heat is on” every time I use my bathroom’s heat lamp?

There is so much monotony in my life as a stay-at-home dad and so much negativity in society in general right now. Singing, even a few quick bars of “someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah,” counters both of those pressures.

So anyone who sees me around town proudly singing anything: show tunes, old TV show theme songs, nursery rhymes, or the instrumentals for “Hail to the Chief,” I’m sorry if it throws you for a loop.

If you can, take comfort knowing it’s because at that very moment I’m living a life without inhibitions and with joy in my heart.

Join in if you know the words and don’t worry if you’re a little off key: I probably am too.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post Singing Without Shame or Inhibition appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

At this point we’ve survived small gatherings, family swims, and a blowout party without any major incidents so something’s going right.

We don’t yet have the stereotypical lifesaver on a rope hanging on the pool house wall but we’ve got a first aid kit with a lifeguard cross on the cover, a freezer full of freeze pops, and a counter full of sunblock.

I didn’t know how I’d take to the pool-owner lifestyle. Luckily, it suits me.

There are worse ways to spend an evening than by quietly skimming beetles and (pine) needles outside.

It’s fun having a collection of tools that fit on the end of a long stick and operating the filter gives me a simple-machine thrill.

Any day where I turn levers and meaninglessly tap on gauges is a good day.

I’m not particularly good at getting the vacuum hooked up (there’s a whole thing about drowning the hose to get all the air out of the system) but once it’s operational I love slowly moving the vacuum head across the pool’s bottom.

It feels like I’m painting the floor clean.

I have a hard-bristled brush for getting sediment off the corners, which is a bit of work but makes such a big difference that it makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.

Really, I’ve just mixed the grit back into the water but sometimes the illusion of progress is all you need.

I run the filter overnight and hope to wake up to sparkling clean water which, on the rare night (lately) when it doesn’t rain, usually works.

The chemicals are a struggle for me.

I learned the hard way not to bring clothes or towels I care about anywhere near chlorine. Each granule is a tiny bleach bomb waiting to streak my fabrics pink.

I had planned to dip my toe into pool chemical shopping but an intense round of “chlorine tablet shortage” news stories shoved me into the deep end early in the season – before we’d even uncovered the pool.

Local news beat everyone over the head with a “chlorine tablet shortage” story fifteen times in one morning so the rush that could’ve been spread out over a month all got concentrated into one stock-clearing day.

After learning which chemicals I’d need, I headed out to get just enough chlorine tablets to last me through the season.

I’ve always been intimidated by pool supply stores like Namco and Leslie’s Pools.

Buying buckets of expensive highly-toxic chemicals is intimidating in its own right but especially when you’ve never done it before and morning news anchor voices keep reverberating in your head saying, “pool owners may be in for a ‘shock’ as the chlorine shortage is sure to ‘sting.’”

I confirmed with a store employee that I was buying the right products but it was pretty clear that the pallet being stripped bare in front of my eyes was probably the one with the item everyone wanted.

One guy pushing two shopping carts felt compelled to tell me that he had two pools.

I wanted to respond, “Two pools!? What do you train seals?” But, instead I said, “Smart!”, which didn’t make any sense but seemed to make him feel better.

It was a surge of desperation I hadn’t seen since Covid’s early days and I resented being a part of it without even knowing if I needed to be (so far as I can tell tablets are still available but they’ve since doubled in price).

Fear seems to be a big motivator within the pool community.

I’m constantly mailed catalogs claiming to remove all my algae and get my water’s PH under control but it’s all too much.

I’m not sure what “algaecide” is, but I’m pretty Saddam Hussein was guilty of it.

I stick to an old-school regimen of chlorine and vigorous filtration.

It’s amazing what you find in your filter basket, especially after a hard rainfall.

The strangest thing I’ve found in my pool’s filter basket is a gun.

A squirt gun, to be clear, but still a big surprise.

It’s far from the worst thing I could’ve found after hosting three pre-teen boys especially considering that their favorite part of the pool wasn’t the water slide but rather the moths who were attracted to the light inside the pool at night and followed it to a watery grave.

Maybe I’m doing too much skimming after all.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post So It Turns Out I’m a “Pool Guy” appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

If you include all of the ones I’ve gotten estimates from, it’s gotta be well over one hundred.

“Oh, you must work in real estate or construction,” the casual reader might think, but no.

So why have I dealt with a small army of tradesmen? (Sorry PC Police, they’ve ALL been men).

Because my wife and I thought the perfect compliment to a pandemic pregnancy was to buy and restore a “well-loved” house.

And, since we don’t have a reality show on HGTV, that also meant staging and selling the first house we owned.

Once you account for landscaping, painting, HVAC, home inspections, radon remediation, and a host of other obstacles (both foreseen and unforeseen) in two different housing markets, the number of contractors quickly climbs.

Home repairmen have become like family to me: I get nauseous when they call, I won’t trust them with a copy of my house key, and I avoid them around the holidays.

I used to be intimidated interacting with tradesmen as if it somehow reflected poorly on my masculinity not to have a complete understanding of the parts and components of my heating system but I’ve gotten over that and am now pretty adept at striking up a rapport with them.

Namely, by not using expressions like, “striking up a rapport” with them.

It’s important to have a good relationship with anyone who’s working on your home.

Not only are you almost entirely at their mercy once a project starts, but they’ve seen the corners of your life nobody else has seen unearthing the mysteries behind your drywall or venturing into the recesses of your attics and crawl spaces.

So how should you go about building this billed-by-the-hour camaraderie? By following these simple tips:

Talk about the route they took to get here.

Once they tell you, either show shared gratitude that they didn’t have to travel too far or express amazement at how far they’ve traveled and compliment them for their versatile knowledge of local geography.

Never, EVER, ask if they had trouble finding the place. Tradesmen pride themselves on always knowing where they are even though they’re totally dependent on GPS like all of us.

Accept their view of the world.

Never look down your nose at a man who’s willing to look down the manhole of your septic tank.

Do you want to know his opinion on taxes, politics, or whether kids today just need a good ass whooping? Of course not, but you’re likely to hear about it.

There’s no sense in challenging him or looking to pick a fight.

Just be grateful that he’s sticking to those subjects and not going on in great detail about the mess he just spent an hour sucking out of your yard with a hose.

Extra points for beating him to the point by vaguely referencing how things have changed and including a note of ominousness in your tone.

Blame everything on the previous homeowner.

It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with plumbing, electric, drywall, or HVAC, your repairman will at some point find fault with the way something in your house is set up.

This may be something that’s your fault or it may be something you’ve never even noticed but either way just immediately blame the previous homeowner.

Not only does this let your tradesman elevate himself by ranting about the “idiot who set this up in the first place,” but it also places you in the same elevated moral position.

Though you might be saying, “the last guy who owned this was kind of weird,” what they’re hearing is, “those people didn’t maintain things to the standards you and I share.”

Even when you’ve never heard of that standard before.

Always hint at a bigger project to come.

Of course, not everyone is just looking to help you fix your current problem as cheaply and practically as possible. Some are just looking to find a helpless homeowner and take him for all he’s worth *cough cough* Roto-Rooter *cough cough*

Keep these vultures at bay by always alluding to a bigger job off in the unsubstantiated future.

My electrician has given me an estimate for a whole-house generator. My plumber has offered referrals for bathroom remodels. I asked my drywall guy about the best time of year for him to possibly re-stain and seal our wooden deck.

The hope is that the appeal of possibly getting a bigger job down the road outweighs any inclination towards taking shortcuts or overcharging me on the current job. I don’t know if it works but it feels like it does.

Learn as much as you can from them.

Most of these guys are lone gunslingers riding into town at the first sign of trouble and leaving as soon as the dust settles.

They usually don’t have many (if any) coworkers and are eager to share some of the knowledge they’ve accumulated year after year from providing the same specialized care.

Some of my favorite questions are: “how much longer do you think I can get out of that system?” And, “for long-term budgeting purposes what would a full replacement or catastrophic failure look like?”

Everything you have is going to break at some point. When it does, you might need someone you can trust to help bail you out.

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post The Subtle Art of Dealing with Painters, Plumbers, Electricians, or any Home Repairman You Need appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

As I vividly imagined this fantasy on Monday (due to a very difficult morning that started at 2 AM, then 4 AM, then pivoted to a second child at 6 AM and wove them both together at 7 AM), it finally dawned on me that it’s a horrible fantasy because I don’t like gambling.

If I’m going to abandon my kids, squander two peoples’ life savings, and essentially blow up my marriage, it oughta be for something I’d enjoy.

It would be just my luck to abandon my mid-life crisis because I can’t get past the room service prices. $18 for an egg sandwich, what am I the Queen of England!?

Even when planning to throw my life away, I’d like to do it responsibly.

You might be wondering why, if I’m planning to abandon my family and spend my remaining days as a degenerate gambler, I would share this information with my wife. That’s a very fair question.

It’s clearly a cry for help.

I secretly want to get caught before blowing through EVERYTHING, but not before I get the rush of feeling completely free. That and it’s just a joke, like a “celebrity hall pass” for evading the responsibilities I’ve packed onto my life.

I’ve always been attracted to fantasies of an unencumbered life.

As a boy I dreamed of running away to join the circus. I don’t have any circus talents but I figured I’d make friends with a chimp like Toby Tyler did and everything else would just fall into place.

As an adolescent I was drawn to movies like Easy Rider and books like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road that found meaning from the simple act of leaving itself.

The solo one-way road trips of my early adult years will always hold a special part in my heart as the time in my life where I scratched that existential itch and leaned into the freedom an unattached youth provides.

I retired that vision of freedom when Mom got sick and I learned that family obligations aren’t impediments to freedom but rather they’re the best possible outcomes.

Still, when it’s a Monday morning smack in the middle of a heat wave and my kids are being especially difficult, it’s fun to dream of running off to try something new.

Any parent who says they’ve never imagined walking out the door (while leaving a capable guardian behind) is either lying or the last person you want to sit next to during parents’ night at your kid’s school.

On Monday, I traded in my Foxwoods plan for a new one of fleeing to Ireland and living as the eccentric American who’s always looking for leprechauns.

I plan to get a gold-plated shillelagh to distinguish me from any other leprechaun seekers. Not only will I look fantastic walking through forests and glens with it, but the gold might serve as irresistible bait for the leprechauns.

As I formulated this plan and started researching whether leprechauns gather gold or merely protect it, my two-and-a-half-year-old toddler snapped me out of the fantasy with an uncharacteristic request for me to rock her to sleep.

This surprised me since she hasn’t wanted to be rocked for about a year (minus the one time she fell off a bottom step and spooked herself).

She might have asked because she’s teething two more large molars, or because her sleep schedule got savaged over the weekend, or because the heat wave sapped her of her strength, but it put her difficult morning behavior into perspective.

I happily obliged, although it was heavily complicated because I was already rocking my five-month-old son to sleep.

I shifted him onto my right side as she climbed onto my left and for a while the three of us silently rocked.

In the quietness of that moment without any tantrums or crying, soiled diapers or bottles to clean, I felt again how fortunate I am to live a truly unencumbered life (even on the bad days).

If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.

If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.

You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].

Share this post on Social Media:

The post Longing to Feel Free and Unencumbered appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.