10 Things That Are Better Than Water Boarding.

So I’m generally the kind of person who supports the men and women who work in service to our country but with the release of this CIA Torture Report I’ve got to say, not cool.  It’s not so much that I’m against the torture, but that I’m disappointed by their appalling lack of creativity.  Sleep deprivation?  Jeeze, babies invented that shit!  Water boarding?  Are you getting all your ideas from sleep away camp? Low temperatures? Try being the child of an economist who grew up during the Depression - no one touched that thermostat!  Enemas?  Celebrities pay hundreds of dollars for that at the spa!  

There are tons of things that are way more effective than water boarding in breaking a person – here are 11:

1) Teaching a senior citizen how to shop on Amazon.

2) Trying to watch and explain Game of Thrones with and to, my mother in law.

3) Being mentored by Bill Cosby.

4) Listening to Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” on an endless loop. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Q3mHyzn78

5) Waiting for a room full of 6 year olds to tie their shoes, over and over again.

6) Discussing current affairs with Kanye West.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U_qY0r8Cs8 

7) Tell them that they will have tv....... just as soon as they get a discrepancy on their bill settled with Comcast customer service.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYUvpYE99vg 

8) Tell them that the ending is amazing before showing them all six seasons of Lost. 

http://gawker.com/5545877/the-lost-finale-was-incredibly-dumb 

9) Two words: Rick Roll  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

10) Two more words: Brazilian wax.

11) Go totally old school. Tickling.  Imagine this scene from Zero Dark Thirty, but with tickles.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEX8WeZU2wA

If all else fails, offer them an iPhone loaded with porn and Netflix.  You get more flies with honey than vinegar my mother always said.   

The Truth About Stuart

This is Stuart.  Stuart always felt a little different than rest of the gang but he couldn’t quite put his hoof on it.  He had always thought it was because of his accent, which his mother said was “the hallmark of your proud Icelandic heritage,” but it always felt like something more than that.  

It was on his ninth birthday that he found out the truth, for that was the year his Aunt Louise gifted him with a small pocket mirror.

No Movember Necessary - We could have saved you guys A LOT of time!

This month there has been a lot of carrying on by men with this Movember movement.  The Dallas Stars are doing it, Damian Lewis is doing it, even Willie Geist has a sad patchy beard going on, all in an effort to raise money for men’s health issues, specifically:  mental health, obesity and cancer.  All bad things right?  Here’s the thing, it is a completely unnecessary endeavor.  All of the above has been sorted out already. “By whom” you ask?.................  By the women in your life of course! We’ve been telling you this stuff for ages: “Go to the gym, eat more greens, go to the doctor, tell me about your feelings…”  That’s it, problem solved. 

So instead of Movember, I propose “Listen to your Wife and Mother Month”.  No need for a scratchy beard or additional funds.  “But what if I don’t have a wife or a mother?  Who do I turn to then?”  Simple, just ask any woman on the street.  She will be more than happy to tell you how to manage your health.  She will also be happy to provide helpful hints on how to dress, what to watch and how to properly conduct your life in general.  There is no facet of you life too small for us to have an opinion as to how it could be done better.  We’re just awesome that way.  If you had consulted us first we could have saved you a lot of trouble.

*This post may or may not have been sponsored by Schick Quatro^®, a stylish and ergonomic razor with 4 titanium-coated blades for a comfortable, smooth shave and Sam’s wife Jean who has had it with the beard.

See Ya Summer!!!

Bye Bye Summer!  Don’t let the door hit you on the way out! 

I hate summer and couldn’t be more glad to see it go!  Want to know the only thing I hate more than summer?  People who looooove summer!   Fall is arriving and not a moment too soon so here is a list of just some of the reasons why summer sucks:

Eating outside.  “Table for two?  Would you like to sit outside?”   This whole fascination with eating outside I do not understand.    We have these structures now that keep the sun off of you and keep the bugs out of your food.  It’s a no brainer, but yet there are the people who just looove to sit outside, even if it is on a dirty, narrow sidewalk with traffic cruising by.    “Yes, I’ll have the pasta primavera with a side of exhaust.”  Don’t even get me started on picnics.

Two showers a day. Which leads me to that nasty feeling when that bead of sweat slowly rolls down your back and down  your crack only to settle sweetly with its brethren in your underpants so that by the end of the day you feel like you are wearing a wet diaper.

Coconut.  Everyone and everything smelling like a coconut?  Why must every cream, spray or lotion associated with summer have that artificial coconut scent? Why would someone want to smell like a fruit that no one likes?  Has anyone ever offered you coconut in their home? No, because it is gross.  That’s why no one likes Mounds bars.

People in bathing suits. I don’t like knowing what folks look like naked and summer ruins this for me.  I mean once you are in a bathing suit the cat is pretty much out of the bag – all that’s to be done is imagine a standard set of genitals and there we have it.  I also don’t like knowing that you have a collection of moles that make up the constellation Cassiopeia or that your husband has so much hair on his back it must be like making love to a rug, or knowing that your husband or worse yet, your wife, has a pie shaped patch of hair on his/her lower back that looks like a gnarly piece of hair pizza.    I’m also less than pleased with the world knowing that I have enough stretch marks to make it appear as if I am perpetually in motion even when standing completely still.  In the interest of keeping this brief, I’ll skip my feeling on the beach but suffice to say it is a filthy and miserable place except at dawn and sunset.

Bugs . Mosquitos, gnats, wasps, ants…… They are annoying and relentless oh and some of these bugs bring terrible diseases  like the West Nile Virus and Lyme disease.  You never hear of a terrible disease from one of the cold countries, only the hot ones.  There’s no Ebola in Stockholm. If you can manage alcoholism, flu and suicide, you are safe as a kitten in Stockholm.

BBS.  Beneath the Boobs Sweat, don’t think I need to explain further.

Sunscreen. Always with the sunscreen.  I’d love to go for a swim but first I’ve got to make sure I don’t get the cancer.   You have to walk around always kind of slick and smelling like some mixture of coconut and whatever scent your deodorant is.  Why the deodorant people can’t get together with the perfume people and make deodorant to match my perfume is beyond me.

So goodbye summer and hello, sweaters and crock pots and crisp air and autumn leaves and Thanksgiving and Halloween!  Its gonna be great!

When we send our kids back to school we tell them lots of things:

We tell them to behave.

We tell them to be respectful of their teachers. 

We tell them to work hard. 

We tell them to pay attention and to turn their phones off. 

We tell them not to buy a bunch of crap in the cafeteria. 

There’s one more thing we need to tell them. …. Be Kind. 

Going to school is as much about becoming a person as it is about the academics:

If you can, stand up for someone who is being picked on. 

If you have the chance, pick the one who is picked last, first. 

Smile. 

Never kick someone who is already down. 

Invite the kid who is sitting alone at lunch to sit with you. 

Acknowledge those around you. 

Make a friend. 

Be a friend. 

For better or worse, these are your people.  This is your community.  Growing up is hard. Take care of each other.