Do you want a spanking?

Please get your mind out of the gutter... That's not what I mean.

I'm talking about when you were little and your parents would ask you that asinine question.

"Do you want a spanking?"

There's only one answer to that question. Well, there are a couple:

- Sure... why not. I haven't had one in a while
- Depends... Which one of you is doing the spanking?
- Yes, but do you know who REALLY wants one? Evan (my brother)

Not sure any of those is really appropriate and at age seven definitely not worth the risk. So really, there is only one answer.

Still, you had to do something right? You knew that ultimately you were going to say no, but you had to drag it out. For pride's sake. So you stood silent, glaring... running down the clock. Then your parents would catch on and call your bluff.

"DO YOU?!"Checkmate.

"No."

"Then knock it off."

I'm sure when I was young I promised myself that I'd NEVER do that to my kids - force them to answer stupid questions so that I could appear all-powerful. But that was when I was young...

I can't wait to have kids. It's gonna be fun. :)

Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?

Now that game was ridiculous was it not? You essentially went from child to child accusing them of having stolen this alleged cookie from the cookie jar. Frankly I didn’t think we had that much evidence to work with. There were never any cookies, no cookie crumbs. There was no jar. It was a witch-hunt; all of us yelling this accusation at each other. But here’s the part that always got me. Rather than vehemently object, the kid in question would respond with shock.

"Bernard stole the cookie from the cookie jar!!!!!"

"Who me?"

No the other Bernard in the group. "Yes you!"

And then he’d say…

"Couldn’t be."

Hold the phone here. Couldn’t be? Why? I wanted to ask… Why couldn’t it be you Bernard? Were you physically impaired in some way that would’ve prevented you from removing said cookie from the cookie jar? I’m guessing, by the way you were running around at recess, probably not. So yes little Bernard, it in fact could have been you.

But we let him slide, didn't we folks… Not only that, but we then gave him the opportunity to cast blame on some other unsuspecting kid.

So, the next someone wants to vent to me about why people today don’t want to take responsibility for their actions, I’m going to remind them of a little game we used to play called Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar…

Waiting on the world to change? Nope not me...

Ever since I can remember I’ve thought that cans of whipped cream were poorly designed. I didn’t mind the dispensing bit at the top, that was fine, genius in fact. I loved seeing that thread of whipped cream on my dessert or hot chocolate, with ridges created by that circularly perforated dispenser. No no, my quarrel was with the cap, and I use the term "cap" loosely. At some point, yes it's a cap. It's a cap when it's sitting on the shelf in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. It's a cap on the way home from the grocery store. It's even a cap if left unopened in your refrigerator.

But as soon as you broke the seal by snapping off that little piece of plastic, you were left with something that looked like a cap, but by no means functioned as a cap. It sat atop the can but didn’t seal it, so the slightest movement would send that little red piece flying. And within a couple of days of opening the can a dried yellowish whipped cream encrustation would form on the top. I remember looking at that as a child and thinking, "That can’t be sanitary." I griped about it every time I had to run that grimy tip under hot water.

Then about a month ago, I went to replenish my stock of whipped cream and I noticed something different about one brand of cans. It didn’t look like the others. There was… a cap on top. No little piece of plastic to be broken off. No, this was a real cap... one that would actually seal and keep the tip of my precious whipped cream safe from oxygen and free of dust and dirt. Cool Whip. Oh Cool Whip you…


Bastards…


What the hell?! What is this?! Is nothing sacred? Granted the old caps weren’t the best design, but I dealt with it. I didn’t stop eating whipped cream because the first spray of whipped cream, after a few days of sitting uncapped in the refrigerator, was a little discolored, a little hard, kind of gross. It didn’t kill me. I grew up with those faux caps. They were apart of my childhood memories. They were a part of me. And now Cool Whip was trying to take all of that away?


Who asked them to lead the revolution of change? Certainly not I. I wasn’t invited to attend any focus groups. Had I been, I would have told them to leave things well enough alone. Shouldn’t they have bigger and better things to worry about?! Will changing the caps increase marketshare by that much? I don’t think so Kraft. I think you’re going to find that many of us will not take this lying down.

I snatched the Cool Whip off the shelf and threw it angrily into my cart. After all I was still a poor student and it was on sale. I saw little alternative. But as soon as I got home I threw away the cap. Take that Kraft!

Give me Plaid or Give me Death!

From the time I started middle school, picking out clothes for school was a source of serious anxiety. Before then I'd had it easy. My choices: I could wear the plaid overall skirt, white collared shirt, white socks with black Mary Jane flats or I could wear all of that and swap out the Mary Jane flats for penny loafers… Or I could wear all of that and trade in the penny loafers for my personal favorites, my Charlie Brown shoes. Back then life was so simple. I didn’t have to worry about fads and matching because I always matched. Everything went with plaid…

And then came middle school. My crutch of a standardized dress code was kicked out from under me and I fell headfirst into the scary world of fashion. Kids today, they just don’t realize just how fortunate they are. I’ve looked at clothes for middleschoolers and highschoolers and I have to say, it’s pretty difficult to mess up an outfit these days. Fashion today is relatively tame compared to the fashion from the 80s and early 90s. Our fashionistas were Punky Brewster, Blossom and the crew from Saved by the Bell for goodness sake. When I looked into my closet there was a world of possibility: Tie-dye, neon, leggings, stirrup pants, body suits, alternating different color socks, striped jeans, tapered jeans, pegged jeans, high water jeans (okay those were never cool, but unfortunately unavoidable if you were a rapidly growing teen)… You name it and it was in my closet.

And my parents were no help either. Tired of hearing, "But that’s what everyone’s wearing!!!" they’d long since abandoned the idea of trying to follow the latest out of YM and Teen Beat.

Everyday for me was a crapshoot. Some days were good, others well, not so good. The problem with the not so good days however was that I was stuck at school all day forced to ensure the shame of my fashion faux pas until my parents came to pick me up. I mean I was 13, so it wasn’t as if I could run home and change.

One thing that always baffled me though, was that most times I remember giving myself the once over in a full-length mirror before leaving the house. Then I'd get into the family Volvo and sit happily chattering away with my brother Evan until I stepped out into the light of day only to realize…

"What the heck?!"

My jeans were too short! Brilliant... cause I was looking for a way to accent my missmatched socks. Problem solved. Oh and LA Gears with a dressy blouse? That was a logical pairing...

There's only one thing I want to say here:

"Really Mom? Really Dad? "

You had to have known that didn’t look right. In which case… shame on you.

And double shame on you for allowing Evan to leave the house in multicolored MC Hammer pants and Doc Martins…

We were not pawns placed in your lives for your amusement. We were your children. You just wait until you can't dress yourselves. Just you wait. Then we'll see who has the last laugh...

Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen...

When I was little and my parents would take me to the fair, they always tried to carefully steer me through the crowd, past all of the carnival games, straight to the rides. Why? Goldfish. Oh how I loved them. Actually I didn’t so much love goldfish as I loved winning goldfish. It gave me some kind of rush. I must have brought home hundreds of those little guys, which is why my parents weren't too eager to encourage my habit.

Initially my parents would just throw my little swimming prizes into one of those glass bowls and set them on the kitchen counter. But they soon realized goldfish didn’t survive that long when we did that. I guess that's what we got for turning to cartoons for tips on how to take care of fish. Who knew Tom and Jerry was such an unreliable source?

No, they needed a tank, complete with faux shrubbery, a water filtration system, a heater, and a light. Thanks mom & dad.

So yeah, it was the craziest thing you ever saw. I was an absolute master at getting those ping pong balls into those fish bowls. If you gave me three chances that just meant I was coming home with three gold fish. It was a sight to behold. You’ve never seen an eight year old with such accuracy, such form.

************

Flash forward twenty years… Replace the fishbowls with blue cups, and the fish with beer. Keep the ping pong balls. What do we get? Beer pong, or Beruit to those who went to school at one of the many obscure northeast colleges.

Perhaps it’s because I was forced into early retirement when my mother finally grew tired of finding fish floating lifelessly at the top of the tank, or on the floor, and having to dispose of them.Yes we found one on the floor. It was Wendal's second suicide attempt, and that time around he succeeded. Rather disturbing.

Or maybe over the years my aim and depth perception had deteriorated. That happens with age right?

OR it could very well be that I simply preferred the taste of beer peppered with with whatever the ball managed to collect during its journey across the filthy floor, and I preferred to drink said beer from a cup that twenty of my closest acquaintances and/or strangers have already drank from.

I have no clue what it is? Or why it is, but now, I seriously SUCK at beer pong. I mean really suck. I’m the fat kid with glasses and asthma and one leg shorter than the other standing on the playground watching as each of my classmates around me is picked to join a side for kickball. That’s me but for beer pong. Only my handicap isn’t so apparent.

For the most part, my friends know not to ask me to be their partner, but people who don't know just how bad I am, always ask. And though I try to tell them that I suck, they never listen.

“I don’t care how bad you are,” They say.

Oh but they do care. They always care.

Every time I see people setting up for a game of beer pong, I ask myself, What happened to that little eight year old? The little girl who would stand waiting for her fish to be bagged, smirking at the pathetic kids who had to rely on their parents to win theirs. In your FACE! she would be saying in her head.

I guess that's what I get. I got cocky and then sloppy. I bet its those same kids, the ones I once mocked, and wrote off as losers... who are now forcing me to chug cup after cup after cup of cheap filthy beer. Oh how the mighty have fallen.


Karma... really is a b!tch.

Ode to Section 3 - I'm lovin' it!!

For those of you who don't know what Sections are (not naming names... Alice Huang) I'll tell you... In a business school class there are about 430 people. We are further subdivided into 6 sections, roughly 70 people per section. Your sectionmates are the people you will spend the most time with in your first year of business school because you take all of your core business school courses together.

In order to help the sections quickly bond early on in the year, there are a series of events that the school puts on such as the Section Olympics, a Ropes course where you spend a whole day in the woods in 100 degree weather "team building" aka being made to feel like you're going to die at every turn, and a couple of other events. The Section Olympics however is not only a team building activity, but one that establishes your order within the sections. Now many might disagree with that statement. Those are the people who are often heard throwing out these cliches:

"Its just for fun."

"We bonded just by being together as a team."

"Who cares if we win or lose."

Who cares? I do.

Last year I walked away from the Section Olympics, sweating profusely and head hung in shame. Section 3, Class of ’09 suffered a humiliating defeat and I, raised to be competitive in even the most trivial of games – called my aunt a filthy cheater last spring during a "friendly" game of Disney’s Scene It - was greatly displeased. Our abysmal performance didn’t even merit a "How you played the game" award. That’s how bad it was.

As section leader of the new Section 3, I vowed that this year would be different. I would accept nothing less than first place.

Section 3, Class of ’10, brought their A game, and then some. A section of people after my own heart. I watched with pride as they passed around the burnt wine cork to mark up their faces, preparing for battle. When we got out onto the field, I watched as most of the other sections sat around idly watching the events... "supporting" if you will. Not my team. Oh no. While everyone else was out there kicking back, my team was strategizing, plotting. They weren’t just out there to win it, they were out for blood. Vengeance. And vengeance they got. It was a thing of beauty. They absolutely DESTROYED the other sections.

And quite honestly, there wasn’t a group of individuals who deserved that win more – 10% skill, 100% heart.

************************

I’m expecting great things from this group. I think they are all amazing and I wish them all the best of luck in their first year!!!

Section 3… Kickin’ ass and taking names

80s Party = Mayhem

"What are you making?" I asked the coffee shop woman as she poured Dr. Pepper into a cup.

She looked up at my strangely, then said slowly, "I'm pouring Dr. Pepper into a cup."

And just like that, my cover was blown. Not that she probably couldn't tell from my bloodshot eyes, hoarse voice, "wind blown" hair and the traces of last night's 80's makeup on my face, but just in case there was any doubt in her mind, I confirmed her suspicions.

"Rough night?" she asked.

*****************

Rought night... Well let's see. I woke up this morning at 8:28am. Which would have been ok if I'd slept in the clothes I was planning to wear to work and if I my office was 2 minutes away. But in fact, I was still in my 80s garb and the office was 45 mins away.

F*ck.

Twenty-eight years old and none the wiser. I'd really thought I'd left these days behind me. At first I was able to rationalize the heavy drinking on a "work" night. In 2003 when Syracuse won the NCAA championship, I thought, what kind of Syracuse fan would I be if I didn't show up to work still drunk from the night before? In subsequent years however, Syracuse never won another NCAA championship so it became:

- What kind of friend would I be if I didn't stay and celebrate a birthday till last call on Tuesday night/Wednesdsay morning?

- What kind of person would I be if I didn't take advantage of $1 drink wednesdays?

- What kind of... you get the jist

So I just stopped offering up excuses. It became common knowledge that after any major holiday/event, St. Patricks Day, Cinco de Mayo, Halloween Thursdays at Union Cattle and Mardi Gras, a birthday happy hour; I along with my cohorts, the Cattle Crew were going to show up late to work, still drunk and often times in the same clothes from the night before or clothes we borrowed from eachother.

Them were the days. But I was a business school student now and interning at a multi-billion dollar corporation. I needed to step up my game prove that I was mature enough to enjoy an evening at a sketchy dance club without aid of alcohol. And that I could make it home at a decent hour so that I didn't find myself sitting at my desk the next morning hating life.

That's what I needed to do... but did I do it? Sure, for about 10 weeks, until Orientation Weekend, more specifically, the 80s party, which was conveniently scheduled on a Sunday evening.

Think about it... Men in short shorts and tube socks, neon aplenty, smurfs and a guy dressed up as teen wolf... Is there really any other option other than to get completely inebriated?

Nope. And so I did. And now here I sit with my bottle of water, ice coffee, half eaten bagel, Ricola and rewetting eye drops. Hating life.

But the question remains. Would I do it again?

Hell yes. These are the days.