“Singer Isaac Hayes died in 2008 while exercising on a treadmill. I heard the news of his death on CNN while I was at the gym exercising on a treadmill.”

The universe is trying to kill us. Pollution, careless drivers, axe-wielding maniacs? Those are nothing compared to what’s in our gardens.
Botanists recently discovered that potatoes and tomatoes are among a growing category of carnivorous plants. Carnivorous plants? Pitcher plants and Venus flytraps eat the bad guys in old jungle movies, but now carnivorous plants are in kitchens across the world and they’re looking at our kids.
“Widely recognized carnivorous plants number some 650 and we estimate that another 325 or so are probable additions—so an increase of about 50 percent,” Dr. Mike Fay told the British newspaper “The Independent.”
Plants in our dangerous gardens catch insects in their hairy stems and absorb their nutrients.
Oh, great, if potatoes, tomatoes, and 973 other plants can do us in, what else do we have to worry about?
Things that kill you:
A: American alligators killed 12 people from 2001-2007. I’ve eaten alligator; I don’t regret it.
B: Batman, but only if you really, really deserve it.
C: Coconuts. Falling coconuts kill 150 people each year. Seriously. I did not make that up.
D: Driving. Anywhere from 39,250 to 47,087 people were killed on American highways each year between 1982 and 2004.
E: Exercise. Singer Isaac Hayes died in 2008 while exercising on a treadmill. I heard the news of his death on CNN while I was at the gym exercising on a treadmill.
F: Frankenstein’s monster. So, if vacationing in German forests, remember, reanimated corpses are grumpy.
G: Grizzly Bears. In 2003, a male grizzly bear mauled and killed a self-styled grizzly expert in Alaska. In 2005, a female grizzly bear attacked, killed, and ate two campers in Alaska. The lesson? Don’t go to places where a grizzly bear may eat you—like Alaska.
H: Hippos kill more people in Africa than do lions, crocodiles, and water buffalo combined. Better stay out of Africa, too.
I: Icebergs. The Titanic not only killed 1,517 people, the movie took three hours of my life.
J: Jason Voorhees killed more than 100 people since Friday the 13th Part II came out in 1981 and still teenagers keep wandering off alone in the dark to have sex.
K: Klingons. “yIlop. wa’leS chaq maHegh.” (“Celebrate. Tomorrow we may die.”)
L: Lightning kills an average of 58 people each year.
M: Martians. In Mars Attacks, martian invaders killed Michael J. Fox. In War of the Worlds, they tried to take over the earth. In Red Planet, space bugs tried to eat us. And that damned Face on Mars just keeps staring at me. I don’t trust it.
N: Ninjas. Don’t piss off—or loan money to—a ninja.
O: Oceans. An average of 36 people drown each year—just off the shores of Hawaii, not that any of them had been drinking. Worldwide, 15 people are eaten by sharks.
P: Pigs. Not only will pork raise your cholesterol, pigs are known to kill and eat children and very slow farmers.
Q: Quicksand.
R: Rambo. Rambo killed 438 people throughout four movies.
S: Stupidity. If it weren’t for stupid people, there’d be no reason to watch the evening news.
T: The Terminator. “It can’t be bargained with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”
U: Unicycles. Just look at them.
V: Vampires. Of course, you won’t stay dead for long.
W: Wookies: “Droids don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookiees are known to do that.” Wookies are not cuddly.
X: XXX. Vin Diesel killed seven people in that movie. Depression from spending hard-earned money to watch XXX killed an estimated 4.2 million viewers.
Y: Yellow fever.
Z: Zod: But only if you: 1) get in his way, 2) live on the planet Krypton.
With all this hanging over our heads, now we have to worry about vegetables. Just don’t go to sleep in a garden, near quicksand, in bear country or on Krypton, and you might survive the night.
* * *
You can order Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at amazon.com.

I sat on the couch. The flashing glow of a sitcom about a stupid husband and his hot wife bounced off my face in a room darkened by the late, late hour of 8 p.m. My hot wife was already in bed.
Hey, to the parents of two kids under five years old, 8 p.m. is like pulling an all-nighter. By 9 p.m. my wife and I start hallucinating.
Then something happened. Something so dark, so foul, I know communists, Corporate America, the Clinton Administration, or quite possibly pixies were behind it.
While sliding into an advertising-induced trance, I twirled something mindlessly with my fingers, realizing that, yes, I could make my whites whiter, I’d be much more fun, stylish, and clever if I owned a Macintosh instead of a PC, and black angus must taste better than any other cow. Then, like my 32-inch waist, my dreams of being an astronaut, my hair, and my youth, the thing in my hand was just gone.
I’d lost my wedding ring.
Let me pause while the ladies gather rocks. Look by train tracks. Railroad companies use hand-sized chunks of granite to bed the ties. Granite makes a nice thump when it hits the cranium.
Do you know how panic twists your intestines into a really uncomfortable ball that won’t bounce? No? Well, then I guess you’ve never 1) been attacked by a bear, 2) seen an FBI badge, or 3) lost the everlasting symbol of your love.
“Good lord,” ran through my head. Although I recognized this exact formula from every 1970s TV comedy and knew how Mr. Kotter solved the problem, I was sure in my case hilarity would not ensue.
I dropped to the floor and, yes, it hurt.
The ring wasn’t on the carpet. I checked by sight, hand swipes, and X-Men power I don’t have, and the Snoopy dance in my bare feet. Under the couch cushions were something sticky, 24 cents, and a two-inch plastic crossbow that fit a toy we’d never owned. And nothing but concrete Cheerios and a scattering of very bare foot-unfriendly toys were on the hardwood floor.
Yes, I would have heard my ring dinging across wood, but after years of listening to Iron Maiden at decibel levels equal to that of having my head strapped to a tractor engine, I needed to check. It could be anywhere.
It wasn’t. The ring was gone.
This, I thought, was worse than telling my kids the truth about Santa Claus*, it was really me who ate the last cupcake and not a thief who also stole the kids’ Raffi collection, or admitting to my wife I was actually a mob informant in the witness relocation program and the paperboy doesn’t come anymore because I “iced” him. Throw a paper in my bushes? I don’t think so.
This is the unpardonable sin. The only thing that ever makes losing a wedding ring acceptable is if your finger goes with it in a thresher accident.
“Honey,” I said, waking my wife because problems are a lot easier to deal with if you bring them up immediately, and your wife’s really, really sleepy. “I lost my wedding ring.”
“That’s OK,” she mumbled, patting my hand. “It’ll turn up.”
She was like that the next day.
And the next.
And the next.
“You don’t need a ring to show your love,” she said in the tone Hollywood uses in movies where women hack men to death in their sleep. That was OK, I was too nervous to eat. “You’re stuck, and there’s no way out.”
I eventually found the ring. It was buried so far in the couch I also pulled out three Smurfs, two Borrowers, and a pixie.
Pixies. I knew it had to be pixies.
*NOTE TO PARENTS: This mention of a highly loved character in Western culture has nothing to do with questioning his existence. It’s all about meth.

***
Jason Offutt is an award-winning humorist who also writes stuff scary enough you’ll wet your pants. You can get Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at www.amazon.com.

Our minivan pulled out of the gravel driveway, headlights cutting through early-morning darkness.

My wife and our two little people were going to the grandparents’ house in Texas for four days. The kids, strapped into car seats like fighter pilots, waved as the van cruised past the front of the house and out of sight. My wife was equipped with the cell phone, credit card, cash for tolls, and just enough optimism to actually make the trip.

And me? I was doing what every husband dreams of—staying home alone for four days. Four nap-takin’, sports-watchin’, gas-passin’ days. Sweet.

They had about a 10-hour drive ahead of them. I couldn’t stand the pressure, so I went back to bed.

Fort Scott, Kan., 9 a.m.: “My tummy hurts,” our two-year-old girl said just in time for my wife not to be able to stop her from throwing up all over her shirt.

Home, 9 a.m.: I rolled over.

McDonald’s, Miami, Okla., 11:45 a.m.: “Two Happy Meals, a hamburger, and large coffee,” the teenage cashier repeated to my wife. “That’ll be $11.90.” Our boy stood quietly next to my wife while our girl shook the cardboard Happy Meal toy display like it had taken her money.

My wife looked in her wallet—she’d left the credit card in the car. She paid for lunch the only way she could, with her toll change.

Home, 11:45 a.m.: I got out of bed. Hmm. Steak would be nice for lunch, uh, breakfast, um, whatever.

Tollbooth, McAllister, Okla., 2 p.m.: “We don’t take credit cards,” the booth operator told my wife, and handed her a slip of paper. “Present this at the next tollbooth and pay there.”

“Do they take credit cards?” my wife asked.

“No,” he said. “But there’s an ATM inside the McDonald’s.”

Obviously the tollbooth operator had never herded two children out of a minivan and expected them to go back in quietly without a Happy Meal toy. Or, maybe he had. Jerk.

Home, 2 p.m.: Halftime. Hmm. Time for a beer.

Tollbooth, Hugo, Okla., 3:30 p.m.: “We don’t take credit cards,” the tollbooth operator said, pointing toward a nearby service station. “But there’s an ATM inside McDonald’s.”

Grrr.

Home, 3:30 p.m.: Second game of the day. Hmm, I thought as I cracked open another beer. Some summer sausage would be nice. I briefly considered going to the grocery store and buying some, but that would take 10 whole minutes. So I yawned and scratched my armpit instead.

Side of the road, Arthur, Texas, 4 p.m.: “I gotta go pee,” the boy said.

“But you just went pee,” my wife told him.

He shrugged. “Yeah, but I gotta go again.”

She pulled over to the shoulder and he peed in the grass.

Home, 4 p.m.: I thought about taking a nap.

Side of the road, just outside of Arthur, Texas, 4:05 p.m.: “I gotta go pee,” the girl said.

Home, 4:12 p.m.: I decided it was too late for a nap and had another beer instead.

Grandma and Grandpa’s house, Paris, Texas, 4:30 p.m.: The kids ran into the house, my wife trudging after them.

Home, 4:32 p.m.: The telephone rang and I turned toward it. The crowd roared. Oh great, I missed a touchdown, I thought, setting the beer down and reaching for the phone. This better be good.

“Hi, honey,” my wife said. “We’re here.”

Five minutes later I’d heard everything that happened: the vomit, the money, the tollbooths, buying a Coke at the drive-through window with the credit card just to get cash back so she wouldn’t have to unstrap the kids. Once you get them out of their car seats, they never go back in the same way—it’s a lot like folding a road map.

I missed a blocked punt.

“How was your day?” she asked, exhausted, sounding like she’d just sat through a Congressional hearing.

“Rough, honey,” I said, pulling another beer out of the fridge. “My day was pretty rough.”

* * *

You can order Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at amazon.com.

There are a lot of things I don’t understand. Like physics, how the Internet really works, and anything to do with women.

Seriously, anything. Sure, it would be nice to know exactly why two objects of different weight fall at the same rate, but it’s not necessary to my survival. Understanding my wife is.

Unfortunately, I don’t. I don’t understand what she eats, what she watches on TV, why she spends so much time in the bathroom, and anything that comes out of her mouth.

Sure, all of our conversations are in English, but they’re in girl-English. I speak boy-English, which mainly consists of highly in-depth discussions about beer, bodily functions, and cheerleaders. But, frankly, she gets a little upset when I bring up cheerleaders, so that cuts down the conversation topics quite a bit. Girl-English is full of words I have to look up.

“I don’t get it,” I said one day as we talked while walking the jogging track, cooled by the breeze of joggers zooming by.

“Don’t get what?” she asked.

“What we were talking about,” I said. It was something like the family budget, or her feelings, or cheese, or the fact that we should be jogging, or something like that. I wasn’t sure.

“What isn’t there to understand?” she said. “I always tell you what I’m thinking. I always tell you how I feel. Understanding me should be easy.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I don’t get.”

Ladies, as a representative of my gender, I have to stress that the male brain works more like a fart joke and less like an episode of “Gilmore Girls.” Our thoughts come in short bursts and we make a face at the end. The male brain doesn’t comprehend feelings or anything that’s not between two slices of bread—and that includes beer, bodily functions and cheerleaders.

My wife just shook her head and kept walking.

What did I learn from this exchange? Absolutely nothing. Did this teach me anything about women? No. But after enough years of this, I might be able to fake my way through anything.

Jason’s Rules to Understanding Women

1. You can’t. Stop trying.

2. Agree with everything she says. Guys, if your significant other is upset enough to complain and then ask your opinion, she doesn’t want your opinion. She wants you to tell her she’s right, everyone else is a jerk, and the world should just die. Do it.

3. If a woman ever asks about your feelings, lie and say you have them on the off chance she’ll drop the conversation. She probably won’t. In that case, talk about sports, then she’ll drop the conversation.

4. If she asks what you’re thinking, always say, “I was thinking about that time we (insert fond memory here),” instead of what you’re actually thinking, which is about girls in bikinis. Are the girls cheerleaders? Probably, but it’s their day off.

5. Women love/hate their hair. Every two to three days, say to your woman, “Have you done something new to your hair?” Chances are she has. If she hasn’t, “Well, it looks nice,” is an appropriate response. “Did you wash it?” is not.

6. Women want attention at all times, which works against a guy’s basic desire to be left the heck alone. Planting a few “you look pretty” landmines into your day usually buys enough time to eat a sandwich while she’s looking in the mirror to see what you’re talking about.

7. Women cry. We don’t know why they do this because we haven’t cried since, a) you fell and skinned your knee that time in preschool, b) the T-101 was lowered into molten lead at the end of Terminator II: Judgment Day, or c) uh, um. Well, there wasn’t a third time. But women will cry during a movie, after they read a good book, when they remember something, or for a reason they don’t even know. It’s during these times they need someone strong and compassionate to hold them. And that’s too bad because once the waterworks start, you’re in the garage pretending to fix the car.

Does any of this make sense? No. But as a husband, it’s my job to make eye contact with my wife and nod a lot. It seems to work.

* * *

You can order Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at amazon.com.

Women Don’t Know Anything About Guys

I knew something was wrong when I walked into the bedroom.

Men don’t sense much, like emotions, subtlety, or the passage of time after high school, but we do realize when something un-guy has happened. And it happened to me.

A free video rental card, a dollar I’d found on the street, and scraps of paper that, at one point may have been movie tickets to “The Empire Strikes Back” sat on my dresser (guys don’t clean out their wallets—ever). Someone, I’ll call her my wife, had violated something more private to me than childhood memories, my fear of clowns, or my prostate. She’d gone through my wallet, a genuine cowhide wallet with real money in it. (While devalued to the point I couldn’t use it to buy a tamale in a poor mountain village, but the last time I checked, a dollar still counts as “real” money.)

“Uh, honey,” I began, words dropping out of my head like rocks. “Why are my ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ tickets on the dresser?”

“I went through your wallet,” she said, like Jeffrey Dahmer confessing to police, but not realizing killing people and eating them was wrong. But she knew. Oh, she knew.

Did her parents teach her nothing?

“Let’s use this money to (insert something I didn’t want to do),” she said picking up my dollar, oblivious to the fact that I was in shock. She had broken Guy Rule Number One: never go through a guy’s wallet.

After I regained consciousness, I wondered what other manformation she wasn’t privy to.

10 things women don’t want to know about guys:

1. A guy’s wallet is more personal to him than the first time he did anything. It’s a sacred place, home to an insurance card, 42 cents, a football schedule from 1997, and a Hooter’s receipt we don’t want you to know about. Stay away from the wallet, don’t touch the wallet, the wallet doesn’t really inhabit your reality.

2. Football games, even Pop Warner football games played by kids we don’t know, are more important to us than birthdays, anniversaries, open houses, Pampered Chef parties, your family, and weddings—unless there’s an open bar; and then there’d better be a TV and it had better be on.

3. Men don’t like romantic comedies, floral patterns, shopping, or window treatments. If your man likes any of these, or actually uses the term “window treatment” when he means “curtains,” don’t expect children.

4. We lie to you more than we tell the truth. If you ask, “Do you mind going to my parent’s house for dinner?” the answer “yes” is a lie. If you ask, “While my sister’s staying with us, would you please not mention her divorce? You know how much that upsets her,” the answer “yes” is a lie. “Did you see that trashy blonde in the halter top?” will also demand a lie.

5. We don’t like meals that don’t include meat. The perfect man meal is beef and alligator wrapped in an entire pig.

6. We don’t like to talk about our day because it’s over. We’re ready to talk about something else, preferably in one-syllable words while holding at least one beer.

7. We don’t like the same music as you (see No. 3).

8. We don’t really enjoy having people in our house. Frankly, having people in our house makes us unhappy because we can’t walk around in our underwear.

9. Clint Eastwood is a religious figure. Don’t speak badly of Clint Eastwood and don’t look directly at Clint Eastwood. It’s a scientific fact men are incapable of moving off the couch during a “Dirty Harry” movie. Please subscribe to TV Guide to plan our social calendar.

10. We don’t remember things not related to our daily routine. The fact that you’re claustrophobic might push out some vital piece of manformation, such as how to run a band saw or who has the right-of-way at a four-way stop. And, yes, sports trivia is vital information. That’s how guys establish the social pecking order.

* * *

You can order Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at jasonoffuttbooks.blogspot.com.

There are people who treat budgeting like guys treat going to the doctor—it’s not serious until they slip in all the blood. My wife isn’t one of those people. She treats budgeting like she was the doctor, specifically, a proctologist.

Therefore our household runs successfully and happily—I stress that, happily—on 42 cents a month. That’s not what’s left over, the 42 cents is what our budget allows us to spend. It gets kind of tricky at the grocery store.

There is, she’s found, an inexpensive way to get through life. The occasional coupon is nice, as are yard sales, auctions, pawnshops, the 30-minute pizza delivery rule (especially if you’ve given your neighbor’s address then claim you didn’t), regifting, and watching movies by peeping through people’s windows.

OK, so she’s not like that at all, except the coupons, yard sales, auctions, pawnshops, and regifting. I won’t let her read the rest of this, she might get ideas.

But, as much money as she saves buying expired canned goods and bulk asparagus, I’m right now putting a stop to one of her money-saving practices—haircuts.

“I need a haircut,” I said one day—out loud, apparently after experiencing a head injury that made me forget Husband Rule No. 1: Don’t talk, ever—ever. Nodding and mumbling are good enough to get you through most situations in life. “You think you can do it?”

She smiled.

There are only four types of haircuts in our family:

1) My two-year-old daughter’s haircut, which is imaginary. My wife is content to allow my little girl to look like a Sasquatch when she wakes up because cutting her hair would be against some religious tenet I’m not familiar with. I can’t tell you what my daughter looks like, only that I’m sure she’s cute.

2) My four-year-old son’s, who goes to a stylist and gets the kind of haircut girls on The CW programs would squeal over.

3) My wife’s. I can’t complain. No, seriously, I can’t and won’t complain. I’m not that stupid.

4) Mine.

“Sure. I can do it,” she said and, much like a teenage girl at a “Twilight” movie, I cried like a baby. And that was before she started. After the first cut, things got worse; I cried like a Frenchman.

At first glance, the sheep shears (picked up no doubt at a Mennonite garage sale, or barn sale, or wagon sale, or whatever) did a pretty nice job. Oh, sure, I don’t think I’d have gotten a blue ribbon at the fair, but the haircut was passable. My hair was short—really short—but that was fine. And … then I noticed the rest. Damn those mirrors.

“Aaaaaaaaaa,” I screamed.

The area around my ears looked a lot like a European map during a war, and not a particularly popular war at that.

“What’s wrong?” my wife asked in a way that sounded like she had no idea one side of my head was completely bald whereas the other side had a smiley face cut into it.

“My ears.”

“Oh, yeah. I hoped you wouldn’t see that,” she said. “But it’s OK. Those spots are on the side of your head.”

Well, I thought. (I wasn’t going to say anything out loud. She was still holding a sharp object.) Some people are going to look at the side of my head and ask what punk band I’m in. Maybe I should tell them “The Screaming Wussies.”

Early in our relationship—before the marriage, before the kids, before the monthly 42-cent limit on spending—my wife wanted me to give her a nickname. Well, I did. From here on out, regardless of any improvement in hair-cutting skills, regardless of convincing me to ever let her approach me with something sharp ever again, regardless of how drunk I get, she’s not just my wife, she’s The Butcher.

At least my haircut fit into our budget. It was free.

* * *

Jason Offutt is an award-winning humorist who also writes stuff scary enough you’ll wet your pants. You can order Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at jasonoffuttbooks.blogspot.com.

Exercise Is Bad. Enough Said.

There’s a bike in my basement. A big, full-sized 10-speed bicycle with tires that still hold air and a clip that would hold a water bottle if I hadn’t lost it. There was a little dust on the bicycle, sure. But it wasn’t like it had a banana seat and a big flowery basket on the front. It was only a few years old.

And it was calling to me.

Summer’s an odd time when those highly respected in your life—sitcoms, doctors, your family, commercials, strange voices in your head—encourage you to do something as alien to today’s American as not going to the drive-through at McDonald’s. They want you to exercise.

At one point in my life, I exercised and I liked it. I had a weight bench, I could run three miles without once stopping for a beer, and I looked like one of those guys who doesn’t look like me.

Then things like my job, the riding lawnmower, and lunchtime naps got in the way. Now I get winded walking to the car. Hey, for your information, there are four steps on my porch. Four.

Walking into the basement, I heard a noise. A slight noise, but it was a noise. The bike was laughing at me. Buckling to the popular opinion that exercise is actually good for you, I pulled the laughing bicycle out of the basement and started riding it every morning.

I used to love bicycling. As a kid, I’d ride all over town and not break a sweat. Now, as I looked at yet another hill, its 45-degree incline hazy from all the sweat in my eyes, I realized two things were different than when I was a kid: 1) my hometown was flat, and this town was as flat as Machu Picchu; and 2) at 43, there’s a whole lot more wheezing involved in riding a bike than I remember. It must have something to do with the air quality.

OK, so I guess I actually realized three things—I now know why serious cyclists stand while they pedal. I always figured it had something to do with using your body weight to generate more speed. Nope, that’s just a side benefit. Cyclists stand because their butts hurt. Whenever you’re forced to drive slowly on a busy highway because you’re stuck behind a line of cyclists, don’t get mad. Just smile and wave as you pass, content in the knowledge that each one of these cyclists has hemorrhoids.

Later, rasping like a sailor in a downed sub, I lie on my living room floor wondering why it looked like the ceiling fan was giving me the finger. I would have been upright, but my knees were no longer up to the whole standing thing.

I wondered, in my pool of sweat, why people say it feels good to exercise. I didn’t feel good. Heck, I didn’t even feel good enough to feel bad. And then it came to me. Oh, it might have been because of the lack of oxygen to my brain, but it seemed clear enough at the time—exercise cannot be good for you. The sweat, the pain, the time wasted on walking tracks when you could have been eating fried chicken. Yeah. Something was wrong.

If exercise isn’t good for you, what else have sitcoms, doctors, your family, commercials, strange voices in your head, been lying about all these years? The dangers of red meat? Smoking? Sugar? Is it all a great conspiracy from the vitamin/Bowflex/exercise video cartels to keep the American public sweaty, sleepy, and exhausted? Yes. We can’t revolt if we can’t stand.

People, listen up—drop the yogurt, get off that treadmill, light up a Lucky Strike, and head to Dairy Queen. Then, after your burger and fries settle and you cuddle up to the dessert menu, I want you to tell me which feels better, a morning of searing muscle pain or chocolate-laced ice cream.

We’re on to you, Big Brother. Oh, yeah, we’re on to you, and we Americans will never be sweaty again.

* * *

Jason Offutt is an award-winning humorist who also writes stuff scary enough you’ll wet your pants. You can get Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at www.amazon.com.

The toddler screamed. You know, toddlers scream a lot.

“No,” she wailed, yanking her hand out of mine. “My do it.”

We were crossing the street, and when it comes to the street, my wife and I have four rules for our four- and two-year-old: 1) look both ways before going into the street, 2) never go into the street, 3) if crossing the street with Mommy or Daddy, hold one of their hands, and 4) if you violate rules One through Three, you’re shipped to work hard labor in a Siberian logging camp in 1974.

The Girl wanted to violate Rule Three. Not on my watch, chicky-pie.

She screamed again, mainly because I’d tucked her under my arm like a football and, for some reason, she didn’t like it. Toddlers have control problems-if they’re not in control, it’s a problem.

“Just wait until she’s 16,” my wife said, holding the hand of our non-screaming four-year-old son, who had to be enjoying this. “Then we’re really in trouble.”

The Girl at 16? Oh, dear Lord. We could already see what was coming. The clothes, the fingernail polish, the Girl still thinking she can cross the street on her own.

“No, no. Put me down. Put me down. Put me down,” the Girl screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. I could only assume she thought repeating the same thing over and over would work, even though it never does. The Girl unsuccessfully employs this method when asking to watch extra television, get candy, drink coffee, or take the minivan out for a death race with those punks from the Pretty Pony Daycare. Although my wife and I appreciate her tenacity, her success rate is as low as Middle East peace talks.

Yeah, toddlers are teenagers, only shorter.

In a couple of years when the Girl decides to pull up her skirt and chew on the hem during the pre-school Christmas program, it’ll be OK. If it happens in 14 years, our house will get calls from the principal, the pastor, angry parents, and a bunch of teenage boys asking her for a date.

By the way, the answer is no, jerks.

I put the Girl down on the other side of the street and she stopped screaming, squinted at me, stomped down the sidewalk in a huff, and, if she’d had the motor skills to give me The Finger, she just may have done it.

Yep, toddlers are teenagers.

*They both yell, “I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” and sprint through the house whenever the telephone rings.

*They’re both fascinated with cell phones, computers, and remote controls, and they both know how to operate these devices better than you.

*Hygiene is only an issue when it’s inconvenient for them.

*TV ranks ahead of Mom and Dad. So do soft drinks, playing with dust particles in the window, and anything else I care to write.

*A lot of times you can’t understand what they’re saying. With toddlers, it eventually gets better.

*They both love body art. For a toddler, it’s Sharpie-colored fingernails and a Scooby Doo sticker on their shirt. For a teen, it’s a visible “Why can’t I get a job?” piercing and a Scooby Doo tattoo on their butt.

*They both want to pick out their own clothes. When a toddler decides to wear a skirt so small her diaper shows, it’s cute. When a teenager wears a skirt so small her panties show, Daddy hemorrhages.

*At some point, they both hate you. Toddlers make up faster because they can’t pour their own milk.

*They both want to make their own mistakes. For a toddler, this is done while discovering the laws of Newtonian physics-like gravity. For a teen, it’s going to the wrong kind of party, being on Facebook instead of studying, or going to a college Daddy hates and for which he won’t pay a penny of tuition.

Yep, I’m already thinking about that. Keep it in mind that the next time we cross the street.

***

Humor columnist Jason Offutt teaches journalism at Northwest Missouri State University and is not a snappy dresser at all. You can reach him through his Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com or by e-mailing him at jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. You can order Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at amazon.com.

Men, Women, and Other People’s Weddings

My college buddy’s wedding was on a Saturday afternoon and, like any true American male, I would have rather been at home taking a nap.

Sure, I was happy for my friend. Sure, I wanted to show my support for his march into wedded bliss-again. And, sure, I was looking forward to all the booze, but statistics show that if given the choice between witnessing a wedding ceremony and throwing yourself down a flight of steps, most guys will take the steps.

Considering this, he’d asked me to stand up with him. Save for being on the other side of a natural disaster that destroyed entire regions of a continent, being part of the wedding ceremony for your best friend is hard to get out of.

“How’d they meet?” my wife asked as we drove to Wisconsin. I didn’t have my tuxedo, I didn’t know how to get to the church, and we were going to be late for the rehearsal dinner. Eh, he was probably expecting it.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“How can you not know?” she asked.

“It just never came up.”

Why is how people met important? Unless some guy rushes into a burning building and saves a woman from certain death, then flies her to safety in the Batcopter, how they met is just as important as what she flossed with after dinner.

For example:

Me (feigning interest): How’d you two meet?

My buddy: She was sitting next to me at lunch and I ate all her fries when she went to the bathroom.

See? That’s nothing compared to the Batcopter story.

“He’s your best friend,” she said. “How can you not know?”

Ladies, guys don’t ask a lot of questions. We might ask a buddy how he thinks the Packers are going to do this year. We might ask how much mileage their car gets. And we’ll definitely ask if they’ve got more beer. But how he met some girl? Unless he brings it up, we’ll just assume he picked her up in a strip club.

“He lives three states away,” I said, completely negating the fact that with today’s advances in telecommunications, I could find out this information if my buddy lived on a mountaintop in Tibet. “Besides, if they’re getting married, there are more things to worry about-like the reception buffet.”

“Well,” she said. “I would have asked.”

Silence crept into the car just long enough for me to get comfortable.

“How many people are standing up with him?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“He asked you to be a groomsman and you don’t know how many people you’re standing up with?”

I guess I never really thought about it. It’s kind of like Pluto finally being asked to join the solar system. It didn’t care how many planets it was orbiting the sun with, it was just happy to be there. Of course, now that Pluto’s no longer considered a planet, I bet it invites all the other planets to its wedding just to get back at them.

“No,” I said, avoiding the Pluto analogy and opting for one with the Seven Dwarfs-or maybe it was the Smurfs. “But Gargamel and the Wicked Stepmother lived happily ever after.”

She frowned.

“If it were me standing up with one of my friends, I’d know how they met, how many people are standing up with her, what her dress looks like, and what colors everyone was wearing.”

And the groom’s blood type and credit rating?

“Do you even know where they’re going on the honeymoon?” she continued.

“Yeah, Costa Rica.”

“Why … Oh, never mind,” she said.

I glanced at the clock. It read 5:30 p.m. The rehearsal dinner was at 6 p.m. and we were still an hour away.

“We have to pull into the next truck stop,” I said.

“We just filled up.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just remember I’ve got to buy them a present.”

Maybe I should learn to be more organized, or at least to keep my mouth shut.

***

Humor columnist Jason Offutt teaches journalism at Northwest Missouri State University and is not a snappy dresser at all. You can reach him through his Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com or by e-mailing him at jasonoffutt@hotmail.com.

My daughter pulled a videotape from a box in the basement.
“New Kids on the Block?” she asked, looking at a faded VHS tape cover featuring five kids who looked like they needed better parents.
“It’s not mine,” I said, sounding strangely defensive. “I’d rather own ‘ABBA Sings the Blues.’”
“Whatever,” she said in the way 17-year-olds do to show they own the planet. “I bet you danced to this.”
Yeah, and I sing “I Write the Songs” while drinking beer with the guys.
“No, dear,” I said. “There are only two people in this house who were alive during the five-minute New Kids reign, and I was the only one too busy listening to actual music to notice.”
“Sure, Dad,” she said, patting my shoulder. “I’ll just keep digging. I’m sure I’ll find Hanson.”
Oh, or maybe even Nelson.
The lesson here? Go through your video/DVD/audio collection before someone finds something you’re embarrassed to own. Well, unless you have “New Kids on the Block: Hangin’ Tough.” My wife was actually excited to see it again while I was trying to make fun of her.
But if someone finds your copy of Ratt’s “Out of the Cellar,” don’t worry, you’re not alone.
I’m sure Ice-T has “Ice Ice Baby” on his iPod. Dick Cheney probably has Richard Simmons’ “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” on Air Force Two. And I suspect Chuck Norris hops into his jammies and cuddles with a bowl of buttered popcorn to watch “Grease” at least once a month, but I can’t be completely sure because anyone who’s seen him do it is most certainly dead.
My embarrassing recording doesn’t include episodes of the original “Star Trek.” It’s not the last episode of “Cheers” and it’s not the first episode of “The Lone Gunmen.”
I own a copy of “Footloose.”
I don’t know how I got it. I don’t know if I’ve watched it more than once-and if I did it was probably because of a date, a dare, or too much cough syrup. And I don’t recognize anyone in the movie except Kevin Bacon, that bald guy from “Third Rock from the Sun,” and some blond girl.
My crime is the fact that I’ve never thrown it away.
“What else do you have in here, Dad?” my daughter asked, poking around tapes full of “The Simpsons” episodes and 10-year-old NFL games I’ll never watch again. “Something in black and white with ladies water dancing?”
“No,” I said. “All you’ll find in there are movies with Clint Eastwood, ‘Terminator I, II and III’ and maybe something with talking chimps.”
She stopped searching through the sea of out-of-date VHS tapes and pulled out a black plastic rectangle of blackmail.
“‘Footloose,’ Dad?” she said, grinning like … well, grinning like she’d just found a copy of ‘Footloose’ in my VHS tapes. “You’ve got ‘Spice World’ in here, too, right?”
I can change the oil in my car, I can fix a toilet, and I can belch like a cartoon rabbit, but none of that manly stuff matters when you’ve got “Footloose” in your video collection.
I hang my head, and please, don’t tell Chuck Norris.

The Over-40 ABC Book

The Toddler dropped a book in my lap. Although I realized a long time ago that the most important accessory to any father’s wardrobe is a cup, I was unprepared. I’m just glad I have good reflexes.
“Read it, Daddy,” she said in her sweet, two-year-old voice, which, by the time it reaches my brain, sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger saying “Hasta la vista, baby.” Like most sensible fathers, my daughter scares the hell out of me.
The book was a typical children’s alphabet book. A is for apple. B is for ball. C is for cat. D is for Division of Family Services. The usual.
As I sat there, reading about the wonders of Elephant, Frog, and Goat, I realized there are books like this for age ranges except adults. Where’s the 20-something ABC books of Antipathy, Beer, and Centerfolds? The 30-something ATM card, Business meetings, and Children? And the over-40 …
Well, at least I can help with that one.
The Over-40 ABC Book
A-Aches and pains. Remember when you could move without stabbing pains in your joints? You don’t? That’s probably for the best.
B-Bifocals. When you realize you can’t tell a picture of Jessica Alba from one of Albert Einstein. And yes, there is a difference.
C-Colonoscopy. Vacation pictures from the lower intestine. You won’t see a polyp like that at Disney World.
D-Depends. Eww, was that you? Depends.
E-Ensure. When scotch and soda no longer count as dietary supplements.
F-Flatulence. No excuses. No guilt. It’s expected. Life goal achieved.
G-Grouchy. What you are while driving, when the gout’s in your big toe, and when the president talks during your favorite TV show. “I don’t care about the stupid economy when Jack Bauer’s shooting terrorists.”
H-Hemorrhoids. What you get when a lifestyle that prevents you from walking decides to prevent you from sitting.
I-Incontinence. The best excuse for going home early. “Oh, I’m sorry, were those your good shoes?”
J-Jars. I hoard quarters, lug nuts, one-cent stamps, and finishing screws in mayonnaise jars. Don’t try to find them. I buried them in the yard and I have a pellet gun.
K-Knees. You know you have them because of the arthritis; you just can’t see them anymore.
L-Lounge chair. A chair, a couch, and a bed, all in one. I could sit here all day. Oh, wait, I did.
M-Memory loss. …
N-Nothing’s as good as it used to be. Darn tootin’.
O-Orneriness. You can now get away with anything. “Who put the dead squirrel in the cheese dip? Oh, Uncle Jim. You are so funny.”
P-Prostate exam. At least when gangsters finger somebody, it’s quick.
Q-Quiet. Everything’s too loud-except conversations.
R-Rambling. Some stories don’t have a point. “When I was your age youngsters went to school, held two jobs, and wore garlic in their trousers because the Democrats gave vampires the right to vote. Now I remember this one time …”
S-Senior discount. The coffee’s cheap; now if I can only stay awake long enough to drink it.
T-TV trays. The greatest invention known to man, next to the lounge chair. No, really. It’s right next to my lounge chair under the TV Guide. (Which, of course, is a viable alternative “T” because it’s the book that tells me what time Jack Bauer’s going to shoot terrorists.)
U-Underwear. Once it was tight, once it was white. Now it starts high and hangs to my thigh.
V-Varicose veins. Cheaper and surprisingly more aesthetically pleasing than tattoos.
W-Wattle. When your neck keeps moving long after you’ve stopped. Who’s that in the mirror? Alfred Hitchcock? Oh, wait, it’s me.
X-X-ray. The inside of your body’s been mapped better than Google Earth.
Y-Yelling. See Quiet.
Z-Zipper. Is my fly open? Pfft. I just don’t care anymore.
* * *
You can order Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at amazon.com.

Metro

The other night my date asked a question that seems to be on everyone’s mind: “Are you gay or just well-spoken?”

 
I’ve been taking this grief since elementary, when other kids wondered aloud whether I was a boy or a girl. Evidently, I have some feminine properties. For starters, I’m nice to people (you can see how that might throw them off). I cross my legs wrong and own a melon baller. I love my cat.

But the thing people can’t get past is the messenger bag. Barney’s assured me that it wouldn’t look womanly if I strapped it across my chest like Chewbacca.

 
The bag still had its tags when I sat down to poker with my buddies.

“Nice purse,” said Ernie. “I like how it matches your shoes.”

I’ve done everything to skirt-er, get around-the man bag. I carried a backpack but always felt like I was on my way to the bus stop, looking to trade my PB&J for a Twinkie. I also tried a tote bag, a laptop case, a toiletry kit, and then just stuffing my pockets like a hamster.

Ernie asked what’s so important that I have to carry it on my person. To be exact: digital camera, mp3 player, appointment book, wallet, cell phone, bank ledger, notepad, pens, cartoon book, glasses, sunblock, Chapstick, hand sanitizer, gum, business cards, harmonica, and a condom that may have expired.

We also found toenail clippers, but I swear they were planted.

I will have you know that when the gang went to Mexico and got stranded without sunblock, they sang a different tune about my “purse.”

I used to be so normal. I spat and surfed and used dirty socks for oven mitts. Now when I vacuum, I back out slowly so as not to disturb the carpet triangles. When buddies use the bathroom, I say, “You didn’t pee standing up, did you? It splashes.”

I’ve developed an urgent need for symmetry. It bothers me, for instance, when Michael Jackson wears only one glove or Pisa doesn’t fix that stupid tower. If I ever lose an arm, I’ll have to seriously consider, for the sake of balance, removing the opposite leg.

People also accuse me of liking clothes. If they only knew. Sometimes I press against the store window and talk dirty to myself … “I’m gonna buy the hell out of that jacket.”

Regular guys don’t think about matching. They’re happy so long as their clothes say something about them. Like “NASCAR.”

My recent date said that she doesn’t trust a man who jogs all the time. Her exact words: “If you can fit into my pants, you can’t get into them.”

How do I keep finding these women? I must have terrible depth perception.

Gay men sometimes hit on me. I’m flattered, gosh, but never know what to say. In the supermarket, a man followed me, vaguely, for three aisles before cornering me in the deli.

“My name’s Peter.” He shook my hand. “Nice grip.”
Um … Um … I’m just well-spoken.

I find myself acting tough to offset the attention. At the gym I stick out my chest and talk like Keanu Reeves: “Hey, dude. Nice shoes…” (applying Chapstick in a manly fashion).

In case you’re concerned that you yourself may be metrosexual, I have compiled a list for you to carry in your wallet.

You might be metro if …
* you prefer bubble baths to showers.
* you speak in semicolons.
* you carry your own salad dressing.
* you’ve been “meaning to have sex.”
* you refrigerate your face-care products.
* your ringtone is “Fur Elise in C minor.”
* you’ve ever had a chopstick callous.
* you watch Hugh Grant movies on purpose.
* you avoid unflattering light.
* you know about unflattering light.
* you get anxious when your belt doesn’t match your shoes.
* you read while stuck in traffic.
* you have an opinion about thread count.
* you floss before bed no matter how drunk you are.
* when someone slurps at a restaurant, you pause significantly.
* the wallet where you store this list is inside a bag strapped across your chest.

* * *

Jason Love is an award-winning humor columnist, stand-up comedian, and author of “Snapshots: The Big Picture,” available at Amazon.com. Check out more of his work at www.jasonlove.com.

It’s not often the news means something to the average guy.
Why, for example, should I care that, according to Fox News, Britain’s Prince William has been forbidden “to associate with Paris (Hilton)?”
Read the rest of this article »

Blue

Slips of paper have been appearing on our living room wall. I ignored them at first, but they keep appearing. Sometimes there are four, sometimes three, sometimes only one. But they all have two things in common: 1) none of them ever stays up for more than a day, and 2) they’re all shades of the color blue.
It’s either a natural phenomena—in which case I have a whole lot to learn about physics, or biology, or whatever science deals with paper spontaneously appearing on walls—an unnatural phenomena involving oozing space monsters, or my wife wants to paint our living room.
I can only assume that whatever is causing this likes blue.
I asked my wife and unfortunately a blue paper-excreting monster from Venus is not loose in our living room, damn it. She wants to paint.
Excuse me, typo. I meant: Damn it, she wants to paint.
Sure, just painting a living room sounds innocent enough (a little taping off here, a little spackling there), but so did the German invasion of Belgium to start World War I (a little machine gun fire here, a little mustard gas there). I think that war started when Kaiser Wilhelm II’s wife wanted to paint the living room blue. The war was less trouble.
Read the rest of this article »

There was something wrong that Sunday morning as my family and I sat in church. I just didn’t know what.
The something wrong wasn’t because I sweat like a coal shoveler every time I step into a church-I’ve finally come to terms with that. I sweat because of all the candles, or the stain glass magnifying the pre-kickoff sunlight, or knowing the Host is really high in carbs. Yeah, it has nothing to do with all that “thou shalt not” stuff I keep forgetting about until it’s too late. Read the rest of this article »

The cell phone rang in my front pocket as my family and I walked across the clean but car-littered floor.

I thought about not answering it. I hate talking on the telephone in front of people who suddenly look like they want to hurt me.

“What’s so important,” I wonder when I see someone else talking on their cell phone in public, “that you have to tell Joshy Pooh-Pooh you love him when you’re in line at the grocery store buying laxatives?” The cell phone has helped drag courtesy, privacy, and not kicking someone’s ass to a standstill. Read the rest of this article »

One of the basic tenets of today’s feel-good, nobody’s-at-fault child-rearing method is follow-through.

If a child isn’t supposed to watch television until he finishes his vegetables, don’t turn on the TV. If a child doesn’t do a chore, don’t give him money for ice cream. And if you threaten to throw a toy out of a moving car, throw the toy out of a moving car.

The problem is, none of the people who write touchy-feely books on parenting expect anyone to, 1) threaten, or 2) throw anything anywhere-ever. Read the rest of this article »