Prefatory Note: Enjoy this one from the archives this week, friends. Your humble humorist is currently attempting to navigate a professional software “update” that makes me want to pull my remaining hair out of my head.—CLS

It’s summer in Tennessee. That means the weather goes from barely tolerable at 7 AM to “Satan’s Front Porch” by 10. When the air outside is so muggy it feels like you’re breathing in chicken soup you really appreciate what makes this weather bearable: central air and iced tea.

Summer means the kids go from crazy busy schedules involving school to crazy busy schedules involving summer camps. My son has two field trips a week, for example. This means his special camp shirts need to be clean for those days. It also means he needs to actually locate those shirts as needed which is apparently a Herculean task for a nine year old.

One idea I had to ameliorate this problem was purchasing additional shirts in the same or similar color. Unfortunately the day-glo puke green is a rare find of which the camp director purchased East Tennessee’s remaining stock. So I have no other option than two extra loads of laundry per week. Joy.

At least there’s no horse manure involved. Last year for part of the summer he was in an equestrian camp that taught kids the virtue of manual labor. Specifically shoveling horse shit. I don’t know how that small boy handled such a large shovel but he did. He also came home smelling like Mr. Ed’s toilet and that smell’s hard to get out of clothes after a point.

We’re all getting excited as the family’s going on vacation at the end of the month. It’s our first cruise—to Alaska no less. I’m especially excited as I’ve never done a cruise before. It seems like my ideal travel situation. Stay on a boat, see the water, have food and drinks delivered poolside…I see little to dislike about any of this.

My son’s had people filling his head at camp about what to expect and it’s wildly unrealistic. Here’s an example of a conversation we had a few short days ago:

“Daddy are we taking our swimsuits on the cruise?”
“Yes, son. Why?”
leaps into air “The stories are true! There’s pools and waterslides on the boat!”
“Um, there’s a pool for sure.”
“And there’s probably buttons you push at the top of the waterslide so when you get to the bottom someone brings you ice cream and cotton candy!”
Shakes head

My daughter’s had one request for the year we’ve been planning this trip: whale watching. So we’re doing that on her birthday. Eat it, Mattel. We need none of your Barbie claptrap. My girl wants whales, so she’s getting whales. Even if I have to Ahab one of those fuckers and pull it aboard so she can study one up close.

There’s little fathers won’t do for their kids. Within reason. I’ll spear a whale but extra ice cream after dinner is out of the question. Sugar is bad for growing children.

Dr. S and I had a discussion about whether we’ll allow the kids to try the boat’s “Kids Club” activities. Her stance is they’re allowed to try it if we stay in the hot tub outside the Kids Club area in case there’s any issues.

“But sweetie surely there won’t be an issue with the Kids Club. They’ve got to have trained people in there working with the kids.”

“Cruise ship workers are one step above carnies. Do you want your children left with glorified carnies? It’s like you’re not even their father sometimes.”

This exchange got me thinking about how on my first trip to Disney World with my parents I’d been encouraged to go on a “Pirates of the Caribbean” overnight “Treasure Excursion” with Disney cast members. I was about my son’s age at the time and refused to stay anywhere overnight than in my hotel room. My parents grumbled but acceded to my tearful requests to stay with them. Had I not protested I could’ve ended up on the back of a milk carton.

At any rate the cruise will be a nice two weeks of not dealing with anyone’s problems and turning my brain off to just enjoy the flow of life. That’s got to be something we all do from time to time just to recharge—turn off your brain, quit worrying about what happened or will happen, and enjoy the present.

So if you’ve hung with me this far I hope you take some time to recharge by staying in the present moment and not worrying about the future. Unless you have to for work or something. Then just hang in there.

We’ll see you next week, everybody!

Ah, summer in East Tennessee is wondrous. Families pour into Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains for excursions to the National Parks, Splash Country and Dollywood. Concerts kick off in Knoxville with artists like Luke Combs selling out Neyland Stadium.

And in Pigeon Forge, shoppers comb the outlet malls for the best deals while attempting to avoid the stares of the coked-up Kangaroo Man.

Continue reading →

If there’s an area where I consider myself a bit of an expert, it’s in grocery store etiquette. I’m the least offensive person in the grocery store. This is a point of pride for me.

My skills in this field developed, strangely enough, around the COVID years where everyone in the grocery business went batshit crazy attempting to control one’s behavior by posting arrows demanding one only traverse in a particular direction down an aisle to select food items for purchase. During these years I perfected my technique of getting in and out of a grocery store in less than three minutes from entrance to exit.

It probably saved my life on more than one occasion. Continue reading →

Prefatory Note: My son is eleven. He is awesome in ways that would fill up this post describing. He’s also the reason I carry a notebook around as he’s prone to spouting off some very…interesting…statements. Enjoy a few—CLS

ON STAR WARS
“I feel like if Darth Vader held up a sign that said ‘Come to the Dark Side: We Have Free Cake and Pie,’ it would get him more attention than him talking about it all the time.”

ON BRUSHING TEETH
Excitedly “Daddy, look! I’m cleaning my skeleton!” Continue reading →

This week I had to buy a new printer for my wife’s clinic as her old one bit the dust.

I’m not particularly upset about the loss of this printer. If we’re being completely honest, her staff tends to beat printers to death. It was repeatedly abused living in the back of an RV that regularly drove over bumpy roads. This is basically a ticking time bomb for printers. When they’re getting abused regularly, placed on inclines and doing shit that most household printers weren’t made for, then you’re probably going to see a high printer mortality rate.

Anyway, let me tell you what I had to do with this new printer. Continue reading →

San Juan, the capital city of Puerto Rico, is a neat place. It’s one of the few cities I’ve visited that felt old, dirty, fresh, and alive all at the same time. We docked in the port downtown and waited for our tour guide. The day’s mission? A cooking class, which delighted my twelve-year-old daughter.

Traipsing through the streets of San Juan, one gets a sense the city is rather proud of both the mishmash of cultures and capitalism that seems to make Puerto Rico so interesting. Everything’s in Spanish, yes, but there’s a lot of English signs and speakers to get where one needs to be if necessary. Continue reading →

Our next stop on the Caribbean cruise was St. Thomas, or as the locals call it, “Santo Tomas.”

They don’t actually call it that but it will get you some fun reactions if you refer to this spot in the U.S. Virgin Islands as such. Try it next time you’re there!

Anyway, today was to be a rather light day in excursions. We found a sky tram that takes tourists from the bottom of the island to the top of its mountains, where one can see some spectacular views. While walking to said tram, my wife and I noticed something very off-putting for us both: our ten-year-old son had basically worn through the only shoes he’d brought on the cruise to the point where he walked on the sides of his feet. Continue reading →

The cruise’s first big port destination was the Dominican Republic. The ship docked in Taino Bay, which is a very touristy area before one gets into the heart of the island itself. Today was going to be a big day: my family had a planned tour of Ocean World.

Ocean World is a theme park of sorts allowing one to interact with all manner of sea and land creatures from the island. Guests can meet capybaras, feed lovebirds and even learn snorkeling in the fishy pools splattered across the campus. My family and I were there to meet the main attractions as far as we were concerned: the dolphins. Continue reading →

HEYA MON! Feeling Irie? Want to get away from it all and sail to a warmer climate?

That’s what the family and I did last week when we took a cruise to the Caribbean for my wife’s birthday. We’d planned to do this for the better part of the year and it didn’t disappoint in the slightest.

As your humble humorist embarked on this adventure, however, I made the decision to chronicle the entire voyage so you would have the benefit of all my wonderful opinions and observations should you choose to follow in my footsteps.

You’re welcome. I’m noble and humble like that. Continue reading →

Once upon a time, in a far off land of make believe, there were two roommates: a hippopotamus named Hoopy Doopy and a unicorn named Gumdrop.

Hoopy Doopy was from a quiet neighborhood and liked to do things most hippos enjoy: eat snacks, lay in the sun, swim and watch professional wrestling.

Gumdrop, on the other hand, was from a place he often referred to as “The Dark Side of the Tracks.” He didn’t know who his mother and father were, and often sought solace in the ministrations of a French ferret named Pierre, who regularly sold him a magical powder he swore would make Gumdrop more sociable. Continue reading →