Memberships

I keep preaching to my kids that they need to get involved with things.  Join teams.  Sign up for clubs.  Enroll in after school programs.  Whatever.  I don’t care as long as they become a member of something and don’t spend every minute of the day in front of the TV or video game.  I really think that that’s important.  In my opinion becoming a part of something is a significant part of life.

I was a member of the high school swim team, and though I spent four years in a green Speedo reeking of chlorine, I still had a great time, and gained many good friends, some of whom are still good friends today. 

I was also a member of the high school water polo team, and though I spent a whole lot of time in that same green Speedo wearing a silly looking cap on my head, once again I had a great time, learned some valuable lessons about teamwork and got to throw a number of underwater elbows at my opponents.

In college I was a member of both an intramural 12” softball team as well as an intramural floor hockey team.  Our softball team competed for the intramural championship my junior year.  As a member of these two teams I learned . . . . well, okay it’s intramural softball and floor hockey . . . come on . . . who am I kidding . . . I had a great time playing, met a number of good guys, and got to fight the “freshman 15” a little bit by running around . . . but other than that not a whole lot came out of those two things.  On a side note, you get a guy bragging about his floor hockey or 12” softball skills and you’ve got a douche bag.  Seriously, you’re better off bragging about your bowling game.  Really.

Anyway, my point is regardless of age I think being a member of something is an invaluable part of life and I’m trying to instill this in my kids.  However, the types of memberships change as you get older, and frankly the memberships available to kids are much better than the memberships available to adults.

For instance my younger son is a member of the local travel soccer program.  He gets professional coaching and training, he gets to wear cool uniforms, and he gets to travel around the area playing against other teams.    I’m a member of Costco.  I’ve actually paid someone to allow me to buy things at their store.  What a scam.  I get a membership card with a small black and white picture of me on the back.  I get to buy things at a discounted price in a massive warehouse like space.  And I get to compete against other discount shoppers for the last family-sized box of Pop Tarts.    

My older son is a member of the Spanish Club.  He gets to make tasty Spanish cuisine and he gets to go on field trips, not to mention the fact that he’s probably getting a head start on learning an important second language.  I’m a member of Netflix.  I get a handful of movies sent to me each month.  I watch them.  I send them back.  And they send me more movies to watch.  As a bonus they sent me a disc that allowed me to turn my Wii game system into a movie jukebox.  Hundreds of movies at my fingertips.  It disabled the Wii system.  No more Mario Kart.  No more Wii Sports Resort.  That was the end of the Netflix on the Wii.

Both of my kids are members of their house league baseball teams.  They get to play baseball with their pals, and they get the opportunity to try out for the travel teams.  I’m a member of the YMCA.  I get to pay $50 dollars a month to be reminded that I am grossly out of shape, not as well hung as the other guys in the showers, and incapable of figuring out how to operate the personal TV screens on the treadmills.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run on those things while watching the Food Network instead of ESPN.  Not to mention the fact that it brings me extreme guilt when I see the membership fee hit the checking account every month and I’m reminded that once again I haven’t even been there in the last 4 weeks.

The only membership that I have that’s worth a damn is my porn site membership, and even that’s not without problems.  Last week I was having trouble gaining access to the site, and had to contact their “tech support people” who told me to reset my computer and erase all the histories and cookies, which I did.  No problem.  All seemed logical to me.  Of course that in turn erased all my wife’s book-marked sites and saved passwords and what not, so she’s now REALLY threatening to cancel that membership.

So, in the end I still believe being a member of something is an important part of life, and I’ll continue to encourage the boys to get involved, but as for me personally it has definitely become more of a love/hate relationship.  Maybe I just need to find some better things to join.  I’ll work on that.

Love/Hate Relationships

I think everyone probably has a “love/hate” relationship with SOMETHING.  They have a love/hate relationship with their car or with their job or with their spouse.   I think it’s just one of those things where you know that everyone has this feeling or relationship about something.  Well I’m certainly no different.  I have that love/hate relationship about all sorts of things.  And I’m not even talking about the obvious – my beloved Chicago Cubs.  That could very well be the ultimate love/hate relationship, and I suspect there are about a million other people who have this same relationship with the Cubbies.  No, my love/hate relationships go deeper than that. 

For starters, Costco.  I have a love/hate relationship with Costco.  On one hand I love this giant store that sells everything from 50” plasma flat screen TVs to a jar of peanut butter.  From diamond jewelry to a package of bacon.  That concept is simply fantastic.  And where else can you get a gallon of soy sauce?  A gallon of soy sauce.  Think about that for a second.  I love it.  This store has everything, and they do sell stuff at a legitimate discount.  Granted you have to have some serious will power to actually take advantage of the discounts and make it out of there with a savings (if you throw in beach towels, swim goggles, athletic socks, office furniture and rawhide dog bones, you may not walk out  of Costco feeling like you’ve saved money).  But that’s the beauty of the store.  I love it.  Then again I hate the fact that it’s ridiculously crowded from the time the store opens until it closes.  And I hate the fact that they’ve crammed so much merchandise in there that they’ve actually made it hard to move around.  And then I pretty much hate the fact that people treat their Costco shopping experience as a chance to bring the whole family out together.  As if getting around that ridiculous store isn’t hard enough.  I gotta trip over a bunch of six year olds wrestling over some Lego set as I’m trying to get to the box of 72 granola bars.  Come on.  And don’t even get me started on the people who come to Costco for a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.  Are you kidding me?!!?!?  What in the Sweet Mother of God are these people doing???  Congratulations, you’ve just saved $.89 cents and it took you 35 minutes to buy a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.  I hate it.

Then there’s the handicapped toilets.  I love these toilets.   First of all the actual toilet stalls themselves are much bigger than the other toilet stalls.  This makes it much more convenient if you have to accompany a small child to the bathroom, and typically they seem to be kept a little cleaner than your average restaurant or sports stadium toilet stall.  I love them.  Then again I hate the fact that the toilet itself is much higher off the ground.  Now if you’re six feet tall or better, fine, you’re probably good to go.  Unfortunately I’m 5-9 on a good day which means my feet are barely touching the ground.  I’m like a kid in a highchair with his feet swinging in the air.  It’s uncomfortable and embarrassing.  So what do I do. . I skootch up on the toilet seat so that my feet are actually on the floor.  And then you know what happens . . . I piss straight out onto the floor.  By skootching up on the toilet seat I’ve essentially given myself a direct line of fire out of the toilet and onto the floor.  I hate it. 

I love my steak fajitas.  I call them Clay’s Fajitas, and I started making them when I was in college.  Not sure why and not sure how I came up with this silly recipe, but it started 15+ years ago and I’m still making them today.  Of course they smell up the house so bad that my wife forbids me from making them when she’s home or even when she’s going to be home so I wind up making them AT BEST a couple times a year when my wife is out of town.  It’s a VERY simple recipe and requires only big cubes of steak (the really cheap kind that is specifically for stews – we’re not talking a good cut of meat – I can buy a pound of it for well under $10), fajita shells, some shredded cheese and one package of Lawry’s fajita mix.  Cut up the meat into even smaller cubes, brown it, pour in the fajita mix, and then put the meat and cheese into fajita shells.  Literally the whole thing takes AT BEST 15 minutes to make.  I love it.  It’s fantastic, and it brings back my college days.  I typically chase the whole thing with a package of Double-stuffed Oreos, or if I’m really lucky a box of Zebra Cakes (we’ll discuss Zebra Cakes in another blog – which I will call “An Ode to Zebra  Cakes” as they are the single greatest dessert in the world, and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise).  Unfortunately, I am no longer man enough to take a pound of Clay’s Fajitas and dessert down without serious side effects.  About an hour after finishing I break out in a cold sweat which lasts throughout the night.  I require about a half gallon of water during the night to ease the fire in my throat and that results in about a half dozen trips to the bathroom.  I typically sleep about four hours after eating Clay’s Fajitas.  I hate it.

There are not a lot of gray areas in my life.  Very few things I can take or leave.  Mostly love and hate…or both.