Just Relax

Buckle up your seatbelts, folks. The Scasta Family Vacation will kick off about lunchtime Friday afternoon. And I will probably be calling for help sometime about one o’clock or so.
My wife came up with the idea of going camping for a couple of days, to celebrate Father’s Day. Here’s the problem- I don’t like camping. I’m not an outdoor, woodsmen, campfire kind of guy. My idea of the perfect Father’s Day would be to actually sit down on the couch for a few minutes, maybe grill something on the pit, and spend all day opening presents.
We bought a travel-trailer about a year ago, and her and the kids want to take it out this weekend. I’ve never hauled one around or set it up before, so this should be quite the adventure.
Let’s compare the two ideal days, shall we?
Open a present, walk to the kitchen for something to eat, come back to the couch, open another present, walk back to the kitchen, come back to the couch, open another present, change the channel on the t.v., open another present, etc. See how enjoyable that sounds?
Now let’s compare that to what’s really going to happen.
Go hook up trailer to Tahoe, break out in a sweat because it a gazillion degrees outside. Catch a finger in the trailer hook, scream like a girl. Start heading for the lake, blow a tire fifteen miles into the trip. Narrowly avoid a huge wreck because trailer is flailing around in the wind. Call roadside assistance, sign away next three years of income to help pay for that.
Arrive at the campsite, spend three hours setting up trailer. Start sweating again, because it’s still a gazillion degrees outside. Find out that something- hot water heater, air conditioner, water- doesn’t work. Spend the rest of the evening mad.
Wake up way too early, take kids fishing. Spend thirty bucks at the bait shop on silly stuff you don’t need. Walk a mile to the good fishing spot, break out in a sweat from walking because it’s already a gazillion degrees outside.
Fish for three hours without a single bite, and watch my son pull in fish after fish the whole time. Catch hook in finger trying to take a fish off of my daughter’s line. Explain for the 100th time why we are throwing the fish back instead of keeping and cleaning them.
Spend half the next day packing everything back up, and start driving back home. Fifteen miles into the return trip, call roadside assistance because the Tahoe is overheating from pulling the trailer. Sign away three more years of income.
Wake up Monday morning tired as Hell from the “relaxing Father’s Day weekend”.

The business of raising kids



I’m not sure how it works around your house, but we kind of run ours like a business. My wife and I are owners in the company and- as cruel as it may sound- our kids are kind of the employees. I don’t believe that my wife looks at it that way, but I do.

Just like most businesses, one partner does most of the real work, the planning, the buying and selling, etc. In our house, she pretty much runs the show. She takes care of the books, buys the groceries, pays the bills, decides when and where we go on vacations, and so on.

I’m pretty much only consulted on the really big decisions or when there is a major crisis- like buying a new car, dealing with a kid who’s crossed the I’m-gonna-tell-your-father! line, or putting up the pool for the summer. Every now and then I’ll take a peek at the books and inquire about the bottom line.

Now, in theory, I’d like to believe that I own 51% stock in the Scasta household. My wife owns the other 49%. As our children get older and contribute to the business they can start to buy stock themselves, and as stockholders can have a small say in some of the decisions.

Right now they are entry-level employees with no stock options. They perform certain jobs around the house, and in turn we pay them with food, shelter, clothes, and all kinds of other junk. Hopefully a few of the lessons that we teach will pay off for them later in life, which I guess is our version of a 401K program, if you will.

I’ve noticed lately that all three employees are getting the same pay, but don’t seem to be putting out the same effort. Every evening I watch my wife and mother-in-law do laundry and dishes for hours. And every evening I think to myself, “Don’t we have two daughters that should be doing that?” But these girls… Well, these girls wouldn’t know how to fold a towel if it had dotted lines and instructions.

My son is different. I could drop my ten year old son off in downtown Houston and within an hour and a half he’d have a full-time job, a part-time job, and an apartment.

I take the blame for that, because I’ve had a more hands-on approach in teaching my son these things. I’ve been way too easy on my girls for way too long.

But like any good CEO of a company would do I identified the problem, rolled up my sleeves, and came up with a solution- I’ve got to teach my daughters the same work ethics and responsible behavior that I’ve taught my son. So I came up with some chores.

There will be many chores. Lots of them. The grimy, slimy, back breaking type of chores that will take two hands to perform. That way, my 12 year old will actually have to stop texting and put down her phone long enough to do them.

A company meeting was called in the conference room (the kitchen) where my partner and I handed out the new job descriptions. It went over about as well as we expected (Ever tell a young girl that she has to scrub toilets?).

My wife seems to think the girls will go about their work quietly, but I expect a little pushback. I just hope that if they go on strike, it’s a hunger strike. This summer vacation food bill is hurting the bottom line.

The Rapture



Well, I see that we’ve all survived the Rapture. Whew, that was a close one.

Seriously though, that’s why I’ve always said that religion is just like alcohol, drugs, sex, and everything else in life. Moderation is the key to everything.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with having a beer or two every now and then, as long as you aren’t in the bars every night. Growing up, I knew tons of people who smoked weed and still functioned normally. It’s the guys who sit on the couch all day and eat Doritos and drink Mountain Dew that give it a bad name.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way saying that I want to come home and find one of my kids on the back patio blowing smoke rings. Until you are 18 or you move out of my house (which is a drug-free zone), you follow my rules. All I’m saying is that it would be just as bad if I came home and they were talking about religion every minute of every day.

Now, back to the Rapture. I didn’t pay it much mind this past weekend, so I treated Saturday just like any other day. But I started thinking about what all I would do if I really did believe that the end was coming in a few days. Don’t worry, this is a family paper so I’m not going to talk about everything.

Now, it should go without saying that most of my time would be spent with family and friends. But my wife keeps pointing out how selfish I am, so I doubt that all of my time would be spent with them.

First thing I would do, have my mother-in-law make a pot of coffee and sit on my back porch with the newspaper. She makes the best coffee ever. I’d read it nice and slow, every article, in peace and quiet with nothing to bother me.

Then I’d take the top down on my jeep and ride down a country road somewhere. With the radio blaring a little Tupac, some Bob Segar, maybe a little George Jones, and I’d tie it all together with some Willie Nelson.

Then I would drive my jeep right to the best Mexican food place I know and try to eat everything on the menu. And wash it all down with Dos Equis, over and over. Oh, and that’s just for breakfast.

After breakfast I’d ask the owner of my favorite fishing spot if I could go out there. I’d drop a line in the water, sit down in a folding chair with my battered old copy of Gone With the Wind, and not give a damn if I caught something or not.

I’d do that ‘till lunch time, when I’d go to my favorite barbeque spot and try to eat everything on their menu, too.

After lunch I would try to gather up all my poker buddies for one more big cash game. We wouldn’t play for money, though. What good would money do when the world is ending anyway? Instead of $1, $5 and $10 chips, we’d play for potato chips, chili cheese fries, and Bud Light.

Once I’ve won the tournament and eaten everything in front of me, I’d bring a big ol’ glass of sweet tea to the couch and pop in my copy of the best movie ever made- Lonesome Dove.

That way, Gus and I could ride off into the sunset at the same time.

Mother’s Day, Schmother’s Day



It got pretty cold here the last couple of days, and I wasn’t prepared for it at all. In fact, I had to work the night shift this week and had to spend a little time outside- on the north side of the building.

As much as I tried to avoid it, as bad as I didn’t want to call my wife, I finally broke down and did it.

“Will you bring me a sweater with a hood on it?” I asked her, holding the phone a foot away from my ear so the high-pitched cussing wouldn’t damage my ear drums. After all, it’s a twenty minute drive each way and I knew she hardly ever has that kind of time to kill in the evenings.

“Of course I will. Do you need anything else?” she said.

I looked at the phone, made sure I was actually on the line with my wife, then listened closely to make sure she didn’t have me on speakerphone. That could be the only explanation to her being so nice- other people had to be listening. Any other time I’d ask her to do something nice for me she would get hotter than one of those plates at a Mexican restaurant.

Come to think of it, she’d been nice to me for the past couple of weeks. She hadn’t fussed when I needed a part for my new truck, she let me sleep late Sunday and -holy cow- she even cooked for me one evening before work.

Ahhh, then it hit me. Mother’s Day is this week. Hence the being nice all of a sudden, the jewelry magazines lying around everywhere, etc.

“Well now I’m stuck”, I thought. If she took almost an hour out of her busy evening at home to bring me a sweatshirt when I should have grabbed one myself, then I have to go get her something for Mother’s Day.

And the kicker is that whatever I get her will be twice as expensive than what I get for Father’s Day, you can bet on that. But I can’t go too cheap, because then I won’t get hardly anything at all when it’s my turn. Instead of the usual pack of underwear and some socks, I’m liable to just get a card. Unsigned.

I’ll say this- whoever thought up Mother’s Day knew what they were doing. And whoever came up with Father’s Day didn’t. I haven’t done the research on it (surprise, surprise), but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Father’s Day was dreamed up years after Mother’s Day was. What they should have done is put Father’s Day first on the calendar.

Think about it, the women already get the best of every other holiday. They get better presents on their birthdays than we do, better presents on Christmas, and they make us take them out on New Year’s every year. And Valentine’s Day? Please.

All we get is Thanksgiving. Would it kill them to let us get the upper hand on this Mother’s/Father’s Day thing? How can they argue with that?

Well, now that I think about it I guess you could call the day of the Super Bowl a guy holiday. And yes, the 4th of July is more of a barbecuing, beer drinking kind of day. And of course, there’s the opening day of deer season…

Tell you what. What do you say we at least switch years every now and then?



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Snickers satisfies



I had a Snickers bar for a snack the other day at work. Not one of the new Snickers bars, with all kinds of new stuff added to it. I had the original, old-fashioned Snickers bars. And it was great.

I know that in today’s world of 24 hour CNN and all the other news on t.v., my mid-day snacks aren’t really news-worthy. But you wouldn’t believe how that one little candy bar opened a flood gate in my memory.

First of all, I had forgotten just how good a Snickers bar really is. You’ve got your peanuts, nougat, caramel and chocolate all rolled up in to one convenient little package. If ever there were a billion dollar product that was underrated, it’s a Snickers bar.

When I was young, my grandfather kept a bag of Snickers under the seat of his pickup truck. When I’d go with him to check cows or make a run to the Co-op, he was always good for at least one treat. And if he happened to turn his head for a second, he was good for at least two.

If I’m not mistaken, he was also the one that introduced me to putting peanuts in my coke. Pepsi, I think it was. Whenever I walk in the house nowadays with peanuts in my Coca-Cola, my kids look at me like I’m from Mars. I’ve tried to get them to give it a shot, but they aren’t having any.

As a high school student I worked part time at the little Texaco station here in my hometown. Most evenings I’d put me a Dr. Pepper and Butterfinger bar in the cooler for a few hours. That’s the way to eat a Butterfinger folks, or just about any candy bar, now that I think about it. But it works best on Butterfingers, and there isn’t a better snack in all the land.

See, the trick is to get the Butterfinger bar just cold enough to break easily, but not so cold that it freezes and you have to chip a tooth biting into it.

Thinking about that job at Texaco makes me think about all my buddies that used to stop by and talk to me while I worked. And first girlfriends. And my first pickup truck, a ’78 GMC with a big ol’ homemade iron bumper on the front. We all called it a “cow catcher” bumper, because it reminded you of the big metal thing that trains used to have on the front that protected them from cows on the tracks.

What a great truck, too. Brown with chrome wheels, and you started it by pushing a button. I always thought that was so cool, that I pushed a button to start the truck.

I bought it from a kid that I went to school with, and $10 bucks would allow you to ride around all weekend. Heck, $10 worth of gas wouldn’t get you down the block now.

You know what I miss about those old vehicles? The smell of whatever it was when you started them on a really cold morning. I don’t know if it was gas, or gas mixed with something else, or what. All I know is that I loved cranking that old truck up.

A friend and I were riding around in that truck one night when I pulled out in front of someone and caused a wreck. The first thing I remember thinking when I came to was “Great. I’ve got this big huge bumper on the front, and I get hit on the side. That’s my luck.”

It’s funny- I hadn’t thought of that truck in years. Until I had that Snickers bar for a snack.



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New dads and old stories



This young fellow that I play poker with every week is a brand new dad. You can tell he’s a great one, too. He’s quick with a story, lets us know how much he helps out, and even after a few months is eager to show a picture of the little guy. In fact, he almost skipped poker this week because the baby wasn’t feeling good, and he wanted to stay home and do whatever he could to help.

Of course, this earned him some good-natured ribbing from the fellas. You can’t threaten to miss poker and come with an excuse like that.

“What are you, a doctor?” someone asked. “Maybe he’s more like a nurse” someone else said. “Hell, that’s why I got married in the first place, so I wouldn’t have to miss poker when things like that came up,” said another guy.

And that led us all to talk about how when our first-borns came along we would take them to the emergency room for coughing or sneezing, weekend or not. I mean we didn’t take any chances whatsoever.

By the time the second child showed up you still made doctor appointments and everything, but you tried to at least wait out the weekend. No since in racking up that weekend rate. And as they got older you would always try a cough medicine or something yourself before taking them in to see the doctor.

Then those of us guys at the table with three kids admitted that by the time the third one came along, it was way worse. I came clean to everyone at the table that my third kid would have to walk in the house holding a body part in her hand before we saw a doctor on the weekend. Colds and flues weren’t enough to seek medical attention anymore. If you want professional help in my house, you at least have to cough up a lung or something.

One older guy chimed in and said that along those same lines, it also got easier to leave the kids with someone to babysit.

“Our first born was probably a year old before we let anyone else keep them,” he said. “And even then, it was only my wife’s mother. By the time our third kid came along, we didn’t even care who took the baby home from the hospital. We went from never letting the first kid out of our sight to paying whatever it took for a babysitter every now and then just to get out of the house.”

As the poker chips and family stories made their way around the table, I started thinking and remembering stories of my own over the years. And for each picture on someone’s phone or in their wallet, a snapshot in time of one of my three kids came to mind.

It seems like only yesterday that I was that nervous new daddy, willing to drive through a brick wall if her forehead even felt warm to the touch. And now twelve years later…

Who wants to babysit? Anyone? Hello?

No more Mr. Nice Guy



I had several people mention to me how much they enjoyed last week’s column. “It was so sweet,” they would tell me. “You must have turned over a new leaf.”

Um, not quite. It’s just that I’ve not mentioned the things that drive me crazy lately. But don’t worry, I’ve still got a list.

For instance, I’m sick of login passwords on the computer. I’ve got two or three different passwords at work, an Apple iTunes password, a password for poker, a password for the satellite radio, etc. Every single time I turn on my dadgum computer, it wants me to come up with a password. I try using the same word for as many of them as I can, but sometimes they want you to put numbers and letters with it, or capitalize some of it, or make some of it in four different languages…

You can click the little box that says “Remember my password”, but that only lasts a couple of weeks. Then sure enough I’ll try to check my mail or something and it will ask me “Do you remember your password?”

Well Hell no I don’t remember my password! That’s why I clicked the dang box, because I want YOU to remember my password.

Here’s another one that drives me crazy, and I’ll bet I’m not the only guy that has this problem. I was trying to pack some leftovers for my lunch the other day and went looking for a Tupperware bowl. I opened the drawer where I saw them last, and lo and behold there were about a gazillion different bowls and lids in there. Round Tupperware bowls, square Tupperware bowls, bowls in the shapes of animals, butter bowls, cool whip bowls, you name it. But I couldn’t find a lid to fit one of those bowls if my life depended on it.

Don’t get me wrong, we had enough lids. Heck, we must have had three lids for every bowl. But none of the lids I found would fit any of the bowls that I pulled out.

My wife heard me cussing and digging around in there, and came in to the kitchen rolling her eyes and making that “disgusted with me” sound that she makes (You know, like I’m the stupid one). She walked right to the opposite side of the kitchen, opened up a totally different cabinet, and pulled out two Tupperware bowls with the lids already on them.

Here’s another one for you. If you or someone you know is in the food serving business, can you please explain to them to cut back on the tattoos and stuff? I don’t want someone painted up like the Lizard Guy bringing my food to my table. I’m not crazy about grabbing my burger and fries from a couple of hands that have “F**K” and “You” on the knuckles.

And for God’s sake girls, can we cut down on the hickeys, please? First of all, if you are old enough to be a waitress then you are old enough not to have hickeys anymore. This isn’t junior high. Secondly, it upsets my stomach when you ask for my order and I look up to see a big disgusting bruise on the side of your neck. Did you get it two days ago? Yesterday? Seven minutes ago in the break room? It just screams “nasty”. That isn’t the word you want running through your mind while you are trying to eat.

Finally, the last thing on the list that drives me crazy is when I see a police officer sitting on the side of the road or just over a little hill hiding. You don’t know how many times I’ve prayed that a big sign or tree would suddenly get struck by lightning and fall right on top of a squad car. Not to hurt them, just to mess up their car.

Listen, if you pass me and you catch me speeding, I deserve it. Go on and give me a ticket. But there’s something about seeing a cop hiding like a nasty little rat that makes my blood boil. It just seems like the easy way out. I always want to stop and yell “Earn your paycheck!” or something. Or stop a half mile away and hold up a big sign warming everybody what’s ahead.

And that, folks, is one column that I’m sure I’ll pay for one day.



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