THE NEW MILITARY

Military experts say that future wars will be fought completely different than any war we’ve ever been involved with in the past. Fighter jets will be unmanned. Cameras will be attached to the jets and people will fly them from the safety of a control station hundreds if not thousands of miles away from the actual battlefield. The “pilot” will navigate their sophisticated planes to the target area, and drop their lethal arsenal with one hand while the other hand is buried in a bag of microwave popcorn.
National defense will be protected the same way. Incoming missiles or aircraft will be blasted out of the sky from someone sitting in an ergonomically approved office chair with his hand on a laser controller that looks very similar to a video game controller. For all he knows, it is a video game. Perhaps the incentive for destroying incoming nuclear missiles is not the satisfaction of saving thousands of lives, but the fact that the “pilot” gets 10,000 bonus points and extra laser power.
Each day I walk into my living room and stare in disbelief at the red-eyed zombie renting out space in my son’s body, playing video games instead of doing his chores, or doing his homework. I used to think, “What a lazy, red-eyed zombie.” Now I look at him with patriotic pride and think, “Keep up the training son. Our country needs you.”

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CHICK MAGNET DAD

A few days ago, my son and I were walking along a street lined with quaint shops and cute girls. I could not believe the looks these girls were giving me as they passed. Some would shoot me a quick glance and smile. Others would perform the equivalent of a full-body MRI on me. Their flirtatious expressions and comments confirmed that they liked what they saw.
And why shouldn’t they? Twenty years ago, their mothers would have given me the same appreciative stares. If their mothers had good taste, it stands to reason that they passed those good-taste genes on to their daughters. Sure, some of them were young enough to be my daughter, but who am I to deprive them of appreciating timeless good looks?
Once we reached the end of the shops, my 19-year-old son leaned over to me and said, “Have you seen the way these girls have been checking me out?” I almost busted my gut laughing, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Not wanting to ground his soaring self-esteem, I decided to let him think these babes were looking him over instead of his middle-aged, balding, slightly overweight, out-of-style chick magnet of a father.
The sacrifices we make for our kids.