This is a big week for me because it’s spring break. I only get one day for spring break, while the students here get a week, but hey, it’s a break. At my age, let’s face it. The prospects of my being able to withstand an entire week of whatever college students do for spring break these days is remote.

 

Students: “Come on Mr. Ray. We’re going to the midnight belly flop contest at the pool!”

Me: “Do they have comfortable chairs?”

Students: “Huh?”

Students: “Oh, that was a joke, right?”

Me: “What do you think?”

Students: “Mr. Ray, you look kind of funny. Are you sure you don’t feel any ill effects from the jalapeno eating contest?”

Me: “Nothing wrong with me that a stomach pump and a bathtub full of Maalox won’t cure. Besides, maybe a belly flop will help me regain feeling below my neck, which left somewhere between the jalapenos and the Jello wrestling.”

Students: “Awesome!”

 

     No, spring break in your forties is a tamer affair. My first thought, honestly, was that it would give me a chance to fill out my NCAA tournament brackets. Whoo! Party!

     Now before those of you who aren’t sports fans flip over to the real estate ads, let me tell you that participating in March Madness doesn’t require any more sports knowledge than participating in elections requires a political science degree. I have mentioned here before that I once saw a girl win a large office pool by doing nothing more than comparing mascots and predicting which would win in a fight in nature. She beat our entire sports staff at the television station.

     This year, I’m particularly interested in the March Madness because my own alma mater, the Baylor Bears, stand a good chance of being in the tournament. To put that in perspective, the last time they were in, I was single. I now have a daughter in college. The letters in Baylor can be re-arranged to spell, B.O. Lary, by the way (not good). I only mention that for those of you who adopted my anagram method of picking winners a few years ago.

     The anagram method involves re-arranging the letters of a school’s name in order to gain valuable clues as to their likely performance. That year, we wisely predicted that Ohio State (hooi taste) didn’t pass the smell test. Neither did Kent State (tent stake) or Tulsa (which spelled backwards is not good at all). This year, I’d steer clear of San Diego (die on gas), and unlike some of my friends, I’m not too excited about Vanderbilt (bland rivet). Somewhat more cryptic is North Carolina (honor can trail). Perhaps that makes them a comeback team. You be the judge.

     Whether you fill out your brackets using the anagram method, or the survival in the wild method, you are likely to do just as well as the people who use the LTWOOP method (lose three weeks of office productivity). This opens up a golden opportunity for you wives whose husbands believe they know everything there is to know about sports. Challenge your husband to a battle of bracketology wits. Make the stakes high.

     In our house this has led to much excitement and many household plumbing projects being completed. That’s because my wife usually wagers wisely, putting up some badly needed project I have been neglecting as my stakes for losing. I, on the other hand, am a guy, and as such, usually set my sights much lower. Just remember fellas; a little smooching is over in an instant. A toilet repair can last months. Wager wisely.

      There are some other methods I would avoid when picking NCAA teams as a novice. For instance, the PILTG, or Places I’d Like To Go method, for some reason, never works out. There are some schools in the tournament that are from some very nice places, such as Seattle, Santa Barbara, Portland and San Diego. None of them have a chance. Trust me. On the other hand, the best teams come from places you might go on a business trip, but never a vacation, such as Memphis, Chapel Hill, Knoxville, and Los Angeles. Then there are those cities you would only visit for the funeral of a very close relative, like Starkville, Mississippi or Milwaukee. They’ll win a game or two and fizzle.

     I hope this has been helpful and will make your March Madness experience a richer one. On the other hand, I realize that the odds of that happening are about the same as my bears going to the final four. Have fun anyway, and remember, a bruin is a bear and a Jayhawk is a bird, just in case that comes in handy. On the other hand, Memphis can be rearranged to spell “hempism,” which is not a word, but it sounds drug related.

     It may be hard to believe, but I’ve been writing this column for almost 7 years. I suppose it’s hard to believe because one should get better in that amount of time. If I had been playing Texas Hold’em for that long, I’d probably have made it to one of those televised poker tournaments on ESPN by now. If I had been sculpting for 7 years, I would have created a large bust of someone famous and beautiful like Marilyn Monroe. Of course, since I have the artistic ability of a sea bass, and even 7 years wouldn’t have changed that, I would have later told everyone I was paying tribute to the late Ethel Merman instead. If I had been in a rock group, I would have made it, broken up with my band (due to artistic differences), and had a comeback tour by now. If I had started learning to fly an airplane 7 years ago…wait, then I’d be dead. No, I have several hundred columns that expanded our collective realm of discussion by introducing time-honored topics such as the water bra, the balding man’s comb-over, what to do when a squirrel attacks you in a bathroom, and black socks with shorts. In case you are wondering, I’m not quitting my column, but there is something else folks have been asking me to do for 7 years and that’s tell them how they, too can write a humor column.

     I get that question a lot. Usually it’s from someone who has majored in English in college, taken another year’s worth of seminars on creative writing, read every book on the subject, joined a writer’s group, and can cite every rule of good writing as readily as I can recite the lyrics to American Pie. There’s really nothing to tell those people other than, be funny, which let’s face it, if your social sphere is limited to the folks in the book club, the odds are diminished. Well, there goes my book club speaking invitations, but you said you wanted help and I’m willing to take one for the team.

     Another question is, “are you just a magnet for bizarre people and experiences or do you simply find the bizarre in everyday life?” My answer is that I got attacked by a squirrel and had a discussion with Kevin Costner and both instances took place in a public urinal inside the span of one month. What do you think? Even before I wrote the column, I lived through Three Mile Island, met David Koresh, lived through a California earthquake, had an ice cream cone with Dan Quayle and got locked in a dark room with Melissa Gilbert of TV’s Little House on the Prairie. Granted, the bizarre experiences don’t come as frequently these days, but I have never had to look too hard.

     It does help to be a little twisted. For instance, the time I had that ice cream with Dan Quayle, I was covering his visit to Texas and he took us into a DQ to show he was a man of the people. I asked him on camera if he realized that the DQ stood for Dairy Queen and that the sign wasn’t just a show of support for him. The look he gave me was priceless (he did play along after that, surprisingly). If you are in a line in the grocery store behind a large, loud, obnoxious woman in tight jeans that say “Guess” on the back pocket, do you ignore it, or does something deep inside you beg you to say to her, “Okay, I’ll give it a shot?”  

      A lot of people, mostly guys, say, “I could write a column.” My answer is always, “Go ahead.” I happen to believe that if you can make people laugh, it’s a good thing and we can never have enough laughter. These people will invariably tell me their idea. I laugh and ask them what they’ll write the next week, the next week, and the next week. Perhaps it is a combination of having bizarre experiences and creating them at the same time…either that, or just learning that puke is a lot funnier word than vomit and a well-placed “booger” can make a person’s entire novel. Either way, if it stops working, there’s always the book club (if they’ll have me).

     

Judging by when this column usually makes it to the newsstand or to your driveway, you either have given your sweetheart a Valentine’s Day gift, or you are about to. Either way, the deed is done. You are either basking in the glow of the love and affection brought on by your impeccable choice in romantic gift-giving, or you are driving around town trying to find a drug store that has something left besides a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” chocolate assortment. A few of you, perhaps, despite my warnings over the years, are bewildered as you haul pillows and a blanket to the living room couch, wondering how you could have gone wrong, and how any woman would not love to have a gift certificate for free taxidermy.

     I mention the taxidermy, not just because it is an example of an extremely stinky Valentine’s Day gift, but also because I actually had a friend in Texas who gave his wife taxidermy for Valentine’s Day. He applied the following logic to his selection. Well, wait. Let’s just stop right there. His first mistake was in applying his logic to anything remotely having to do with his wife and a gift. Now that we’ve cleared that up, he deduced that since his wife had just bagged her first deer (during a trip he dragged her on against her will) that what she wanted more than anything on earth was to stuff the head of the deer and place it on the wall in their living room. Taxidermy is expensive, he thought, and nothing says, “I love you,” like paying for a guy to stuff your animal carcass. That friend is single today, but you don’t have to be.

     There’s time to pull this ox out of the ditch. First, tell her that your initial gift was a joke, or possibly a test designed to gauge the level of the conditionality of her love for you. Had she fawned over you despite the fact that you gave her a personal tick removal kit for Valentine’s Day, you would have known that the depth of your relationship was not dependent on what material possessions you gave her. Instead, she threw a potted plant at your head and ran into the bedroom crying, causing you to have deep concerns about the purity of her commitment to you. You tell her that you have a nice gift you’d like to give her at this time. Of course it’s up to you now to locate and purchase a good gift, and let’s face it, your track record isn’t good.

 

     The folks at Amazon.com (in case you are an online shopper) have provided a public service by culling from their extensive gfit holdings, the very type of gifts you should not give your loved one. This is a sampling of what they list.

Tick Nipper: Tick Removal Tool (see, I told you!)

Sex for Dummies book (Enough said)

Wolf Urine Lure – 32oz (They don’t say if a smaller amount would be okay)

Crappie World Magazine subscription (even if she likes to fish)

All About Scabs – My Body Science Series

Flattened Fauna – A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets and Highways

and my personal favorite…

Tapeworms – A Medical Dictionary, Bibliography, And Annotated Research Guide to Internet Resources (in my view the bibliography part was fascinating – those tapeworms read some interesting books)

 

   Look, there’s no shame in being a lemming and just getting the flowers and chocolate, but if you strive to be different and unique, just bear in mind that unique and different are great attributes if you are Bono, but The Unabomber was also unique and different. Knowing the difference can mean the difference between a twenty second kiss and a temporary restraining order.

     After looking extensively (for more than five minutes) at the Amazon list, as well as my own, I’ve found that most really bad Valentine’s gifts (not including the wolf urine), fall into a handful of categories. Appliances – Anything you give her that creates work, even if it’s easier work that what she was doing, is bad. Body improvement items – This includes anything from weight-loss books to gym memberships to body hair removal systems. Books (unless you wrote it and it’s all about her).

       Now get out there and make up for your mistake and remember, just because you know your girl hates her cellulite, doesn’t mean she wants you to give her the seaweed cream for Valentine’s Day. One other thing – a ring is the only thing you should ever wrap in a ring-sized box. Trust me on that one. If it were down to something in a ring box that’s not a ring or a tick nipper, I’d get the tick nipper. A tick nipper in a ring box and you can start packing.

I am happy to report that the sky didn’t fall, the earth didn’t swallow us, the sun didn’t burn out and aliens didn’t invade the earth and vaporize everyone in their path (at least not as far as we know), and we did deposit our one and only child at Baylor University last week, where she will spend at least the next four years. I’m not saying it was easy or anything, but the world didn’t stop revolving.

Guessing from the number of emails I’ve received about the subject, apparently a few other parents found the process of helping their college bound kids leave the nest somewhat traumatic. One told me that she thought she was going to die from grief when she helped her daughter matriculate last week. I would die if I were involved in something like that. I mean all I did was move my child into a dorm. If she had started matriculating, I don’t know what I would have done. I only had one towel and I don’t have any medical training. What? Oh.

I don’t know how much the rest of you folks cried, but I only cried one time and that was just a little. Unfortunately, it was captured by the local CBS affiliate, KWTX in a story they were doing on my daughter’s return to Central Texas, so everyone and their dog saw it if they looked closely enough. Don’t bother looking at their website either, I’m sure they took the story down by now. I mean, really. My wife cries every day for a month, but somehow remains composed during the interview. I let out one tear and a camera is there to catch it as though I’ve been a puddle of parental goo for the last year.

We made it just fine on the thousand-mile-trip home, thanks to satellite radio. We sang to a channel that played bad ‘70s music most of the way. I am ashamed to tell you that I still remember the words to such radio cow patties as “Run Joey Run” and “Life is a Rock, but the Radio Rolled Me.” Suddenly we were at home and boy was it quiet.

We’ve got to find something to do with ourselves. We used to watch Jeopardy together at mealtime, but without my daughter there, it’s not really a challenge. I could do yard work but…okay, I never really considered that. I wanted to redecorate her room, but the counselors at the university told us not to. They said that it was unsettling to new college students to come home to find that their familiar surroundings had changed. I had dreams of setting up some sort of football watching cocoon, but apparently, we have to treat that room like Uncle Mortimer died in it and we’re showing respect.

I’ve heard from enough parents to know that this is a significant problem that is not addressed by our society. We need support groups, government programs, 12-step classes, and infomercials. We need help. Well, wait no more; here are some helpful hints on what to do with your extra time now that your house is childfree. I have taken some of these from helpful readers, and others from knowledgeable sources, such as the guy who bagged my groceries.

1. Take up a new hobby with your spouse – This could involve anything from mountain biking to poker, to hiking or knitting. I’ve selected carnival barking. I’ll let you know how it works out.
2. Adopt a foreign student – Our daughter threatened not to come home if we did this one. I think she’s afraid her room would end up smelling like some exotic vegetable or something. Still, it’s a valid choice, what with my language skills and all.
3. Pretend she’s still there – I’m not kidding. One family actually made a cardboard cutout of their child and put it in the family room, the bedroom, the dinner table, etc. That family reads this column, so I’d like to say that’s a great way to stay mindful that a valuable member is temporarily away, but is still very much a part of the family unit. It’s not creepy in any way and you are definitely not in need of special attention from some people who would love to visit with you if you would give me your physical address.
4. Re-enroll in college – One mom told me that the process of moving her daughter in to the dorm got her thinking about resuming her own education now that she has the time to do so. As luck would have it, she picked the same major as her daughter, and the same college and they same….wait a minute. Buck up lady! Get a hold of yourself. We’re all going to make it just fine. Get away from the backpack… now!

In the pioneer days, and I must admit most of my research came from watching “Little House on the Prairie,” the trip to the store was a pretty straightforward thing. First of all, there was no stopping by Walgreen’s to pick up something on the way home. If a wife told her husband to run by Walgreen’s back in the pioneer days, it was tantamount to telling him to get lost because not only would her headache be gone by the time he got back, but the kids would be grown and she would have had at least two other husbands. Trips to the store happened about twice a year for many pioneers. They would load up on things like grain, salt, seed, corn, molasses and cloth. What they did not purchase were things like lighted bras and talking urinal cakes, which fortunately are the topics of today’s discussion.

While you were busy last week reading about the snowstorm in the Northeast, or the astronaut who taught us all how to drive from Houston to Florida without taking a potty break, some interesting news items crossed my desk. Because of the kind of people who read this column, those items are seldom about news events like global warming or congressional hearings. No, they are usually about things like lighted bras.

One alert reader actually sent me a link to a website which displayed, in living color (www.enlighted.com/nervebra.shtml) the newest trend in foundational fashion for ladies who want to be noticed – from distances of up to a mile. The “nervebra,” so named because, let’s face it, you’d have to have a lot of nerve to put one on, features an intricate pattern of flashing, multi-colored lights, which flash in several sequences depending upon your mood, I suppose. What the website does not divulge, is exactly what occasion this particular undergarment is appropriate for. I can imagine a few that it would not be appropriate for, such as the boardroom. “Mrs. Salinksy, are you wishing to contribute to the discussion, or are you just experiencing a fireworks display in your blouse?” The company in question here, Enlighted, wants you to know that it didn’t stop at the bra. It has multi-colored light displays for just about any garment, including an entire suit. They just highlighted (no pun intended) the bra because it was apparently the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day (see last week’s column). Ours is supposed to be here in time for the big day. I guessing it will go into that drawer that ladies keep for all the Valentine’s outfits their husbands give them. At least this one will stand out.

The point of this column, if there had been one, is that we have come a long way since the pioneer days when we had just enough money to spend on the basics, and perhaps a piece of hard candy for Christmas. I’m not yearning to go back to those times, mind you. I have grown quite fond of indoor plumbing for instance, but if pioneers heard about some of the things we classify as “must haves,” they would laugh so hard that they’d spew their tepid, curdling milk through their nostrils.

Speaking of indoor plumbing (I did, didn’t I?), news outlets all over the country reported on yet another newly developed device that not only puts the lighted bra to shame, but has a public safety use as well. If you guessed, talking urinal cakes, you are not only right, but you should seek the care of a mental health professional immediately. That’s right – talking urinal cakes. According to KOAT in Santa Fe, The State of New Mexico, which apparently has a drinking problem, has ordered this nifty invention to place in bars so that when male patrons make that last pit stop before hitting the highway, they can be reminded verbally by the urinal cake, that they should not drink and drive. Two thoughts spring to mind.

First, I’m not sure we want to place a guy with a snoot full in a situation where he hears a urinal cake speaking to him. Although it might cause some people to wisely quit drinking right there and then, it might also push some over the edge. Secondly, I would love to be at the talking urinal cake company, where they had such high hopes for their invention several years ago, only to find that there was really no demand for conversational toilet parts. I picture the last true believer sitting in a wrinkly suit in a warehouse by the telephone with dusty boxes of talking urinal cakes stacked all around him when finally, the call comes in. “Hey, this is New Mexico. You still have those talking urinal cakes? We’ll take 500 off your hands.” You got to love progress.

Some very encouraging news crossed my desk last week. It appears that the Hip-Hop scare of the late 20^th and early 21^st century may be on the wane. Record company executives are reportedly alarmed that, for the first time ever, sales of Rap and Hip-Hop CDs declined dramatically at the end of last year and the trend continued into this year. It’s too early to tell, but industry analysis indicates that two factors may be at play in the stunning trend. One, the most obvious, is that when artists continue to kill each other, the stable of marketable product is likely to decline. Secondly, Rap music, which in case you didn’t know, is primarily formed by shouting song lyrics with the same tone a parent uses when he discovers his four-year-old has used his $120 Mont Blanc pen to stir mud pies, has been linked by scientists to poetry. That’s right. Young people are learning in increasing numbers that songs that contain words but no actual singing are in fact, poetry – the same junk Mrs. Jenkins makes them read in English class. If this trend is something substantial and not a mere bump in the marketplace road, I’d like to suggest that we replace the departing rap with another form of popular music – Rock.

      Oh, but we have rock music, I hear you saying. I would beg to differ. If you take away what is classified as Classic Rock on the radio (Lynyrd Skynrd, Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith with one other random artist inserted each hour) and then remove new rock and roll songs performed by 60-year-old guys who used to perform rock, you are left with two distinct categories. I will call the first genre of today’s radio rock music, Soy Latte Rock. I won’t mention any specific bands, so as not to have my email box clogged with death threats, but you get the idea. These records are made by people who wouldn’t know a power chord if one jumped into bed with them. They have taken rock music and stripped it of its muscle, adding numerous notes, instruments, and worst of all, chords, which render songs unbearable to those of us who really can only handle three chords at a time. To make matters worse, these artists don’t sing about cars or the process of losing/getting a girl. Instead they sing about colors and other concepts. We let Led Zeppelin and Rush get away with that, but only because they used power chords, not harpsichords.

     The other kind of new rock is classified by some as speed metal or death metal. This is because you have to be on speed to tolerate it and it makes most listeners yearn for death. I’ve tried to listen to it on many occasions. I even like that song that goes, “yeershh kleep mufft mufft yaaaaang kill,” you know the one. However, it doesn’t take long to get your fill of a musical form in which every song sounds like my uncle did when he passed that kidney stone last year.

     At this point, you may have correctly identified me as a “dinosaur.” I’m willing to accept that moniker, but I have tried to keep up. You have to admit, however that there is a shortage of really good rock music. Take any other genre, bluegrass, Celtic, country, soul, R&B, folk, and even jazz, and you’ll find stuff that people in their teens and people in their 40s like. The arena rock many of us grew up on, however, is in short supply. By now, some of you are wondering, “Am I a dinosaur too?” Here are some ways to know for sure.

 

1. Have you ever gone off the road because playing an air guitar solo simply could not be accomplished without taking both hands off the wheel? You are probably a dinosaur.
2. Do you ever sit awake at night and wonder when it became unacceptable to use a Moog synthesizer in a song? One year everybody used them, and the next year, they were gone. I blame Emerson, Lake and Palmer. They did go a little overboard.
3. If you stop with your family on a vacation for directions, and someone says to “head east,” do you immediately start singing, “Save my life I’m going down for the last time?” I’m here to pull you out of the tar pit.
4. Did you quit smoking 20 years ago, but still have your last lighter because you used it to show your approval during a Bad Company show? Your fossils just turned up in the Mojave Desert.
5. Did you spend a day last week in an unexplainable funk because that guy from Boston died? That was a Jurassic bummer.

 

     Maybe, just maybe, it’s all coming back around. If not, I’ve discovered that iPods play Dire Straits just as well as Coldplay.