I'm a weather wussy and I admit it

Dear Old Man Winter: Stop it.

I readily admit I am a weather wussy.

I am not a fan of snow, nor cold and when you put them both together as this fine nation does every year...well, let's just say a hacienda in Mexico sounds better every day.

My dislike of winter weather begins long before the snow flies. It actually starts when the frost begins.

You know those frigid morning where you haven't adjusted your schedule to accommodate the time you need to scrape off the diamond-hard layer of frozen water on your windshield.

And then there is the frost on the inside of the window. As the car is warming up and you have take a credit card out of your wallet and scrape the interior of your car windows, sending those little white snow-like bits of frost all over the dash.

And now you are late for work so, with the heater on full blast, you gingerly make your way out of your driveway while scrunching down to look through the tiny spot at the bottom of the windshield that the heater has managed to melt.

When you get to work, the windshield is clear and your car is toasty warm – just in time to park it for eight hours so it can return to being a car-sicle for you warm up again so you can go home.

At least you don't have to shovel frost, but you know when the frost comes, the white frozen water that falls from the sky is not that far behind.

One thing I do find very amusing about snow is all the people who say it caught them by surprise.

How does an entire season catch anyone by surprise. Unless you just moved here from that hacienda I was talking about, you know snow will eventually find its way to your doorstep.

It's too bad there was not some sort of warning the snow was coming. Perhaps a device with numbers, days of the week and months on it that would indicate what season it is.
I do not know what to call this device, but it sure would come in handy to help people figure out roughly when winter is going to make an appearance. We could even hang it on the wall where it would be easy to see.
Perhaps the old timers, which is pretty much anyone over two years old, could tell those drivers that every year, winter happens in Canada.
That way, they will not be caught by surprise.

When the first snow hits, local tire shops are swamped with surprised who people who thought maybe this year there would be no snow and are stunned to find out that there is.

Imagine that, snow in Canada in the wintertime.

The first snowfall of the year also brings with it accidents as all those surprised people forget that snow is not only cold, it is slippery.

Every year the RCMP issue an official warning, urging people to slow down and drive carefully.

That is right up there with the warning on a hair dryer that it is not to be used in the shower.

Do we really need an official warning to figure these things out?
I guess we do, actually, because there they are.

I do admit the first snow fall of the year (you know, the one that catches everyone by surprise) is usually the toughest one to drive in because you have to re-learn how a car handles in the snow.

But if you ease up on the gas pedal and remember that tip about snow being slippery, you should be just fine.

We still have a few more weeks of winter ahead of us so remember drive safe, defrost your windows and dream of that hacienda where the coldest thing you will have to worry about is the ice in your drink.

Copyright 2017, Darren Handschuh

Why when I was a kid...

I think my parents made life too easy for me growing up.
What am I supposed to say to my children about the hardships of my youth?
The only angle I can think of is I had to work a lot when I was younger, but other than that there’s not a lot to whine about.
When I was around 10 years old I asked my dad for some money. Instead of money, he handed me a shovel.
My first thought was, ‘I guess I could sell the shovel for some cash,’ but I knew if I wanted money I would have to work for it.
I took the shovel - which conveniently came with a handy wheelbarrow attachment - out to the section of property where my dad and grandfather were building a nursery.
Sitting in the middle of the empty lot were two dump truck loads of dirt.
My mind was attempting to form a picture: a shovel, a wheelbarrow and a pile of dirt.
“Nope, sorry dad, I’m just not making any connections.”
It’s amazing just how motivating he could be when he explained things, and I began moving those two massive piles of dirt.
Thus began my foray into the working world. I was bringing down a whopping 50 cents an hour.
As I got older, the nursery got busier so I would work after school and on weekends.
Child labour laws, what child labour laws?
Actually, it was good because I could afford bikes, cars and the most important expense – girls.
So that’s about it, that’s all I have to complain to my children about.
I can tell my children, “Why when I was your age I had already mastered the art of moving dirt with a shovel and wheelbarrow.”
I never had to endure any great hardships like being poor or having to eat the family pet because we couldn’t afford meat.
I desperately need more “Why when I was your age” rants, but they are hard to find.
“Why when I was your age we didn’t have any of these fancy remote control units for our TV sets. If we wanted to change the channel we would have to get up and walk all the way over the set, change the channel and then walk all the way back to the couch.
And if you wanted the TV louder….”
It pales compared to my dad’s stories of working 12 hours a day when he was 15 years old.
Like many people of his generation, my dad grew up poor and worked hard to provide for his family. When he goes on a rant about how tough the times were – which I believe is the right of every senior – his stories are of true hardship.
So the TV remote rant is pretty weak. What else can I say?
I may have to resort to making things up.
“Why when I was your age we didn’t even own shoes. We tied a piece of bark to our feet and walked 20 miles to school in the snow in May – up hill both ways.
“We had to get up at 4 a.m. to milk the cats. We had to milk cats because we couldn’t afford cows. Then after school we had to milk the dogs before we went to bed. In fact we didn’t even have a bed. Me and my 18 brothers and sisters all slept in a broom closet. It was so small we had to sleep standing up, on one foot and we liked it.”
I wonder what my children will be telling their children.
“Why when I was your age our computer didn’t have a hyper-gig of RAM. We had to try and get by with 512 megabytes. Do you have any idea how slow that is? Let me tell you kids something, it was pure hell trying to open a website with lots of pictures.
“Why it took a full 22 second. You kid’s don’t know how lucky you have it.”
Somehow it just doesn’t compare to my father’s stories of growing up after the Dirty ‘30s.
I guess the size of the rant depends on the size of the hardship.

Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh

Hey buddy, you want to score some toad?

I was recently sent one of those e-mails with little know facts about life and the world we live in.
Information such as at any given hour there are 61,000 people in airplanes over the United States is interesting.
Well, it is to me anyway, which gives you some idea of just how pathetic my life is and just how easily amused I a can be.
I would also find life much easier if there were not so many shiny things lying about to distract my already distracted brain.
Another amusing, yet absolutely useless piece of information, is the first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Oh, how times have changed.
Now it would be acceptable to show Fred and Barney in bed together.
Anyway, one of the items in the e-mail of useless (but interesting) information sent me on a short-lived quest to verify the validity of the claim.
The statement was simple: you cannot lick your elbow.
My first thought was, “Why would you want to?”
My second thought was, “I wonder if that is true.”
So I casually found a quiet space where, that’s right, you guessed it, I tried to prove them wrong.
Feel free to give it a try yourself. Go ahead, you know you want to.
You have likely just learned the same thing I did, which is the same thing the original author learned and that is you can’t lick your elbow.
Unless your tongue is 12-14 inches long, it’s just not going to happen.
I got to wondering who the first person to try this feat was, and more importantly why did they try it.
I guess some people just have waaay too much time on their hands.
It is just another example of people doing strange things that most of us probably would never even think of trying.
The elbow incident got me thinking about other strange activities and how they came to be. There have been stories over the years about people licking toads and frogs to get high.
First of all, that is truly disgusting. Secondly, who knew licking an amphibian would give you a buzz?
Who was the first person to lay tongue to toad and think, “Wow man, that’s pretty groovy.”
Were they sitting around a campfire moaning about not having any money for beer when a frog hopped across the lawn and someone said, “I know, let’s lick that frog for fun?”
The only thing stranger than the guy who came up with the idea, is the person he got to join him in getting fresh with a frog. I refer to the inventor of the getting-personal-with-a-frog-as-a-form-of-entertainment game as a male, because, honestly, I do not know any females dumb enough to try licking a frog for fun.
Or perhaps it started at Woodstock where someone decided to take the ‘experimental stage’ of their life to the next level and include woodland swamp creatures to help with the expansion of their mind.
“Hey, what’s wrong with Mikey? He’s freaking out.”
“He got hold of some bad frog.”
“Bummer man, I wonder how many flies he’s gonna eat before he comes down.”
In my 40 something years on this earth, I have never considered a frog or a toad a party accessory, but others have and if it wasn’t for those willing to push the limits of idiotic behaviour there would be much less to talk about in this world.
Thank goodness it never caught on, or police would be raiding grow ops one week, and frog farms the next.
“Pssst, hey buddy. You lookin’ to score some amphibian? I got frog. I got toad.”
And as everyone knows, frogs are the gateway amphibian.
One minute it’s a simple pond frog, then it’s a big ol’ bullfrog and the next thing you know, you’re all the way up to snogging an iguana.
Pretty soon you are sleeping in the bushes next to the zoo just waiting for the chance to sneak in under the fence and make off with a creature of the Kermit variety.
Instead of asking for spare change, you are asking for directions to the nearest swamp.
As if actually licking a frog was not enough of a reason not to try it in the first place, the thing that creates the ‘high’ is actually a mild poison secreted from the critter to fend off attackers.
How smart do you have to be to ingest poison for a cheap high?
I guess if you are willing to lick a frog in the first place, the answer presents itself.

Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh

The dangerous life of a mall cop

I am sure there are hazards associated with the job, but do mall security guards really need to wear bullet-proof vests?
I was strolling through a local mall recently when a SWAT wannabe walked by with his Kevlar-covered chest puffed out in a you-better-not-mess-with-me strut.
He did look pretty fearsome I must admit, and once I was done chuckling at the show of machismo, I was actually almost close to being intimidated.
I’m all about the safety, ask anyone, but I just thought the body armor was a little over the top. Or maybe the black vest was fine, but the swagger of the little man wearing it was the over-the-top part.
Either way, something was over the top and, for me anyway, kind of humorous.
I mean it was a mall, not some drug-addled, inner-city ghetto where he had to take down crack dealers on a regular basis. Not all security guards wear the vests, but I have seen a few mall guards donning the black body armor.
I can understand why there is a need for security, and to be honest with you, it is not a job I would want because who wants to deal with obnoxious and ignorant shoppers all day? I guess there is the possibility of being stabbed and in that case the vest would come in handy.
I hope it would anyway. If the thing can stop a bullet, I assume it can stop a knife. So I guess there is some justification for wearing a bullet-proof vest, but the sniper helmet, balaclava and jump boots were definitely too much.
I saw some security guards working the downtown core, and for those guys I could appreciate the vests because of their clientele, but having been to the mall many times in my life I have never viewed it as a hotbed of danger.
The downtown security guards need a certain attitude, a certain aura to do their job. They need an aura of, “Mess with me and you will be wearing your butt as a hat.”
The ones I saw were also quite big and strong and somewhat scary looking, but that is kind of an occupational requirement for those guys.
I talked to one and he said it was not unheard of to get into a “scuffle” on a regular basis.
Not to diminish the dangers the mall guards face, I have just never felt my safety was marginalized while walking past the food court.
“Hit the ground, a small child is running down the hall.”
“Everybody scramble, a group of teens are talking loudly and laughing.”
I did feel some concern the last time I was in a mall in the United States. I half expected a crazed gunman to come in and start shooting people at random because the store did not have his favourite type of cheese doodles.
At 6’4” tall, I would make an easy target.
“I hate tall, bald guys. I was frightened by a tall bald guy once when I was a kid.”
POW-POW-POW.
I wished I was wearing a bullet-proof vest, and bullet-proof underwear (with optional diaper attachment because if someone starts shooting…), and a bullet-proof helmet and gloves and neck protector and – well, basically just wrap me in Kevlar like a mummy and point in the direction of the tool store.
The most frightened I have ever been in a mall in Canada was when it was just my wife and myself and I noticed a sign at a ladies clothing store boasting “Everything 50 per cent off.”
Eeeek, nooooooo.
I had to think and act fast. At first I tried to walk between her and the sign hoping she would not see, but felt that tactic left too much to chance, so I tried distracting her.
“Hey look over there. Doesn’t that guy resemble Brad Pitt?”
My cleverness turned out to be my demise as she checked out the Brad Pitt look-a-like, reflected in the window where Billy McStudbagel was walking past was the 50 per cent off sign.
Of course in the window it was “ffo tnec rep 05” but she quickly reversed the numbers and letters and spun on her heels like a military drill sergeant and headed straight to the store.
It was like an invisible force was drawing her.
I began to protest, but upon hearing my words of disharmony, a security guard, dressed from head to toe in medieval battle armor, intervened and asked me if everything was alright.
Everything was fine, and besides who could argue with someone dressed like King Arthur (with a bullet-proof vest of course.)

Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh

I seem to have misplaced my brains

OK, this is just a little too strange to ignore.

A while back, the University of Texas in Austin reported 100 brains have gone missing.

That's about half of the university's collection of brains that were preserved in jars of formaldehyde and used for a variety of studies.

This opens up a whole universe of questions from who took them to why did they take them?

Why would anyone want one brain in a jar let alone 100?

I know people like to collect things – I have several old tools mounted on the wall of my man cave – but I have never thought I needed a brain collection.

What would you do with them? Put them on the mantle? Perhaps on the coffee table as a conversation piece – a conversation that I hope would include the recommendation to interact with a mental health professional.

But wait, that is not all.

The university is home to some of the greatest minds alive today, and this is what one of those great minds had to say about it:

“We think somebody may have taken the brains, but we don't know at all for sure," psychology Professor Tim Schallert, co-curator of the collection said.

You think somebody may have taken the brains!

What do you mean, you think someone took the brains?

If no one took them, what the hell happened to them?

Did they some how come back to life and figure out how to get out on their own? If so, there are a lot of people in Ottawa who could use a method of bringing their brains to life.

Is this some weird horror movie coming to life: Night of the Bottled Brains, Attack of the Fermented Gray Matter, Charge of the Contained Craniums?

I am no detective, or a high-IQ professor type (or even a high IQ type in any capacity for that matter), but even I can figure out someone took the brains and I have never even been to Texas.

His co-curator, psychology Professor Lawrence Cormack suspected undergrad students may have liberated the brains from the facility for Halloween or other juvenile reasons.

Now that makes much more sense.

Of course, there is always the Frankenstein monster scenario where undergrads are regenerating their own creatures made of accumulated body parts and needed a brain to complete the set, but I highly doubt it.

Following an investigation, school officials determined it was youthful adventure by high-IQ, low common sense students who did it for a gag.

And yes, some of those students were displaying the brains in their dorm room as a conversation piece.

“Here at Ima Laimo Dummo, we not only have a great fraternity, we have an awesome collection of jarred brains.”

To prevent further cranial misadventures, the remaining 100 brains were being moved to a different location in the hopes they will not wander away like the others.

OK, so we solved the mystery if the missing brains, but I have one more question: why did it take so long to notice?

You have 200 brains – which is a lot of brains – and 100 go missing, don't you think someone would have noticed sooner.

You would think around the 50-brain mark, one of the high IQ types would have looked at the menagerie and thought, “Hmmm, our brain collection seems a little light. I better take a look.”

Instead, a full 100 brains had to go missing before someone noticed and sounded the alarm.

But, at least the case is closed and we don't have to worry about a bunch of brains running amok – especially in Ottawa.

Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh

I'll have the mucus-free diet please

So I saw this promotion for some sort of cleansing diet and one of the selling features was a claim to be mucus free.
Hmmm, I am no dietary genius, but I would assume anything mucus free is better than anything loaded with mucus.
If that diet is claiming to be mucus free, does that mean there is a diet out there that boasts its mucus content?
“Try the green gelatin diet aid, now with extra mucus. For those tough cases, try the new elephant mucus, all the way from Africa.”
I doubt it will be a big seller, but it could help people lose weight because after eating all that mucus who could possibly hold down any real food.
Even saying the word mucus is unpleasant and I seriously doubt the inventor of the mucus-laden diet had both oars in the water, or even in the boat, or even knew what an oar was.
How would you like to be the person who has to market this plan? It would be easier to sell a time share in Baghdad.
Last year, my wife went on a cleansing diet (a completely mucus free diet) that lasted a gruelling 21 days and was supposed to free the body of all toxins and bad stuff.
From what I could see, all it did was free the body from any real food.
My wife is an amazing person, but she can get a little grumpy when she is hungry, so I was somewhat nervous to hear about her foray into the realm of dieting.
She was actually in good spirits throughout and only tried to attack me with a claw hammer once. It was my own fault, actually. I made the mistake of being on the same continent she was.
I am kidding of course. She maintained a pleasant demeanor for the entire time of torture, which is a testimony to just how strong of a person she is.
If I went that long without any real food, all the cats in the neighbourhood would mysteriously disappear.
“No Mrs. Jones, I haven’t seen Fluffy. What am I eating? Um, chicken, that’s right, it’s chicken. It’s not Fluffy or anything.”
At first she had to cut out certain food groups, like dairy products, which wasn’t too bad because she doesn’t drink milk or anything so she survived the first couple of days with relative ease. (It was easy for me anyway, because all I had to do was sit back and watch.)
A few more days later she had to cut out meat. This one really hurt because my entire family is a clan of carnivores who jump on hamburgers like a pack of jackals on a three-legged Chihuahua.
Then, she could only eat fruit and veggies. She slowly had to give up more and more food groups until all she was allowed to do was suck nutrition out of the air like a plant.
Once the peak of the cleansing diet was reached, she could start to reintroduce food groups to her menu until she was back to chowing down with the rest of her clan.
I feared for any cattle within striking range the day she was allowed to eat beef again. Let’s just say dead animal was on the menu that night.
I have to admit I was very impressed that she endured for the entire three weeks. A good friend of ours agreed to go on the diet the same day and she lasted about six hours, which is still two hours longer than I would have made it.
My wife said she felt better after the diet and that I should try it.
I had a better plan.
“How about I just tell you how great you did and we both rejoice in your success over a pizza loaded with mechanically separated meat products?”
I never did attempt the diet.
In fact, I have never been on a diet in my life.
When I was a teen, I was as skinny as a rail and used to take all sorts of protein supplements in an effort to gain weight.
It was kind of like the anti-diet I suppose. Anything that might help me pack on a few pounds was fair game, but for several years I barely gained a pound.
I could literally eat as much of anything I wanted and not gain an ounce.
It was when I turned 35 that this dietary disaster came back to bite me on the, well you know.
It was like I woke up one day and, phooomp – I had an ever expanding portable food storage facility attached to my waist.
While I am hardly tubby, or built like an American – watch the news and see how many obese Yankees you can spot, it’s fun for the whole family – I could stand to lose a few pounds.
The battle of bulge is being waged and so far the bulge is holding its own.
While I have not jumped head first into a full-blown diet, I’ve got to admit I am trying to be a little more careful with what I eat.
But no matter what is on the dinner plate, I can guarantee it is all 100 per cent mucus free.

Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh

This is too weird to make up

Being a news junkie, I take the time to read newspapers, surf Internet sites and watch broadcast news on TV.
I simply have to know what is going on around the world all the time.
I have come across a variety of bizarre and unusual stories.
A while ago I read the story of an 82-year-old grandma who laid a beating on a man who was trying to rob her.
The 20-something bad guy attempted to grab granny’s purse, but the feisty senior refused to let go, took the guy to the ground and proceeded to give him a good, old fashioned whoopin’.
When police arrived and saved the culprit, super granny was quoted as saying, “It’s too bad the police got here so soon. I was really going to kick his ass.”
Now that’s my kind of granny.
No sitting around baking cookies and knitting for her. This granny is probably down at the gym pumping iron and taking full-contact kick boxing classes.
She may have been the only person collecting an old age pension to hold a title in her weight class.
I wonder what happened to the thief wannabe after he was sentenced.
How rough was prison for this guy?
Fellow inmate, “So what are you in for?”
Purse snatcher, “I killed 92 people with a fork.”
Fellow inmate, “Wow you are one bad dude. No one better mess with you. Hey, wait a minute aren’t you the guy who got beat up by an old lady?”
The prison explodes in uproarious laughter and the purse snatcher knows his reputation as a tough guy is done.
How much respect could this guy possibly get?
Purse snatcher, “No, that wasn’t me. It was, um, my evil and much wimpier twin. I pled guilty for him to spare him the embarrassment of dealing with this in prison. Honest.”
More prison laughter.
I’ve never been to prison, but I am assuming you do not want to be known as the guy who got his butt whooped by a member of the blue hair club.
Another story involved a lady who ran over her husband because she thought he was possessed by Mickey Mouse.
I guess the eight-foot tall mouse trap didn’t work so she had to take matters into her own hands.
The part I can’t figure out is what’s the big deal? Even if her husband was possessed by Mickey how bad could it?
Granted, he is a giant rodent, but it’s Mickey Mouse for crying out loud. Kids love the guy. He’s an icon of the Happiest Place on Earth.
If her husband was possessed by Donald Duck then maybe she could plead self defense because that guy has some anger management issues that really should be addressed. Counselling or maybe some self help discs would be in order for The Donald.
Mickey, on the other hand, takes everything in stride, is friendly to everyone and would never hurt a fly.
Perhaps living with that high, squeaky voice could be a little irritating, but hardly a reason to flatten someone with a Buick.
I don’t know what happened to the lady, but I am sure it involved interacting with some form of mental health specialist.
I believe the husband survived the car incident, but was later eaten by a 90-foot tall cat, a tragic ending to a bizarre story.

What the hell are you talking about?

I know I am old, well old-ish anyway, and us old-ish folk are easily confused, but I have been using the English language a tool of the trade for more than two decades and lately I have been baffled at the changes my mother tongue is undergoing.

I know the way we speak evolves over time and how we talk now is wildly different than how we talked 200 years ago.

When is the last time you said 'thee' or 'thou' or any of those goofy words Shakespeare was so fond on?

Until I wrote this, I don't know if I have ever used those words in communicating with someone.

Times change, and the way we speak change.

Even in the 1900s, the way humans communicated changed greatly.

In the 1920s, applesauce was more than just something to put on pork chops. It was an expletive same as horsefeathers, as in "Ah applesauce!"

And “The Bees Knees” did not refer to the anatomical part of a bee's leg that bends, but of someone who was really cool.

Why? I have no idea.

And speaking of cool, in the 1950s the word evolved from someone who was cold to someone who was popular, or neat or, well, cool.

The '60s had a its own way of speaking as did the '70s, '80s and so on.

I get that our language changes, but at least back then actual words were used to in conversation, even if they were a rather odd collection of words.

With the arrival of social media, Facebook, texting and other evil acts of communication, people don't even talk in full sentences anymore.

LOL – means 'laugh out loud.' I get than in text, but people are using as a word in regular conversation.

TTYL means talk to ya later, I get that too, but there are so many new 'words' out there an old-ish guy like mean has a hard time keeping up.

I know what WTF means and I think I can apply it to much of what I am reading online.

The way things are going, the human race will stop using full words and simply 'talk' to each other using nothing but a jumble of letters.

IDKWTHYATA would become my favorite collection of seemingly random letters.

It is one I made up myself, and it means “I don't know what the hell are you talking about.”

Because more and more often, I don't.

KTHXBYE means OK, thanks, good bye.
I can sort of see how a collection of normal English words mutated into a jumble of seemingly random letters in that one, but there are many more out there that do little more than baffle my brain and give me a headache.
And as if that is not bad enough, there are online terms that do not even use letters to express words.

143 means I love you online. WTF?

How does three seemingly random numbers mean I love you? Without the use of a Google search, there is no way I would have put those two together.

2H2H is too hot to handle. Um, Ok, if you insist.

2L8 is too late. Now that one I actually understand.

4N is short for foreign, and I get that one too. I thought I was doing pretty good for an old-ish guy and then I came across A.

That was it; just the letter A. Apparently it means 'Hey.' Here's a plan: why don't you just type Hey. It's only three letters and it will keep us old-ish people from banging out craniums on the keyboard.

How about the 'word' Attwaction – that means attracted to a twitter user. It's bastardized cousin, Attwicked means addicted to twitter.

Oy Vey - which means this is some nutty stuff.

Deets means details and for some reason dewds is dudes. Again, the question why must be asked. It is the same number of characters, just a different spelling.

But possibly my favourite new word is doge. Can you guess what that means? I had to look it up and it would seem doge is Internet slang for...dog.

That's it, IGU (I give up).

Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh

A horror story parents would understand

I feel obligated to provide a warning to all who read these words. This column contains images that are not recommended for those with a weak constitution. It is a tale of unspeakable horror and scenes so vile only the bravest of souls should dare read Tales from the Crib.
The day started out like most other days, except this day my son, Junior, had the flu. Now a flu is not fun for anyone, but for a two-year-old boy it brings with it a whole set of problems adults don’t deal with, such as a child’s ability – or should I say willingness - to throw up no matter where they are.
Hearing Junior was awake I entered his room and stopped cold when I saw what my young son had accomplished. I also instantly realized giving grape juice to a two year old with the flu is not the smartest move.
Standing in his crib with a big smile on his face was my son. The front of his sleeper was purple, the crib was purple the floor and even the wall was purple, but what really impressed me was he got some on the ceiling.
That is regurgitation of Herculean proportions. I had never seen a kid hose down a room with such efficiency.
His older brother had done his fair share of spewing, but I was in awe of the master.
I felt a brief twinge of fatherly pride, however it was quickly eclipsed by a sense of ‘Oh the humanity.’
Junior was not upset in the least by the situation, but I was left wondering how I could get my hands on a haz-mat suit. My wife poked her head in the door and then took off faster than a gazelle on steroids mumbling something about how she gave birth, so the least I could do was clean up the mess.
Now, just how long does the ‘I gave birth’ excuse work? When I’m 90 and the dog makes a mess on the floor, will she mumble through her false teeth something about giving birth before wacking over the head with her cane and telling me to clean it up?
But, back to the task at hand. The first thing I had to do was get Junior out of the crib, which would normally be an easy task, but the blonde, blue eyed Creature from the Purple Lagoon standing before me made it a scary proposition.
At first, I tried using ‘The Force’ to lift him out and float him to the bathtub, but it didn’t work.
It was obvious I was going to have to pick the little guy up and carry him to the bathroom. It is amazing how fast one can run while carrying a small child by two fingers at arms length.
Jr., meanwhile, was having a great time and giggled all the way as I tore down the hallway with the determination of a weight watchers class which had just spotted a pizza.
I placed him in the tub, got him out of his sleeper and cranked up the water. I took the sleeper to the wash machine and set it on puree before heading back upstairs to deal with the crib, wall and ceiling.
Surveying the room I wondered how so much goop could come out of such a tiny person. As I scrubbed I realized I had not even had breakfast yet and I began to think about how good some eggs would be right about now.
I am convinced only a parent could think about what to have for breakfast while cleaning up 37 gallons of kid barf.
Eventually I got the room cleaned up – there is still a stain on the carpet as a sort of memorial to the event – and got Junior dressed and downstairs, thus ending the vomit incident.
If you’ll recall this adventure in parenthood started because Junior had the flu and with it came diarrhea, or as we call it ‘the scoots’ because you are always scooting to the bathroom.
That was also the day I learned a diaper can only hold so much recycled food matter before it escapes the elastic confines of the undergarment by any means possible.
But the story of the overflowing diaper and the family dog who gave its best effort to help clean up the floor will have to be told a different day.

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh

Dear winter - you suck

Once again the grip of winter is firmly upon us and I for one say ba-humbug.

That is not a negative remark toward Christmas, but it is a comment on that dreaded, frosty, icy, cold, miserable time of year that happens every year no matter what.

You would think being born and raised in Canada I would be used to winter and cold and snow and all the other miserable aspects of the non-summer months.

I am used to is, but that does not mean I have to like it.

I am just not a fan of winter.

Running out to your car in the morning as your breath transforms into ice crystals and the boogers in your nose freeze is always a fun way to start the day.

If the lock on your car is not frozen, you can enter your vehicle with relative ease, but then you make the mistake of letting that crystalizing breath collide with the windshield and suddenly you have ice on the inside of your car.

But first, you have to get rid of the frost on the outside so you start your car, crank up the heater – even though for the first few minutes it is blowing cold air – and then climb out and start scraping away the handiwork of Jack Frost (who is a jerk by the way).

If you are smart and plan ahead, you will have an ice scrapper handy. Which I do, unless one of my kids have gotten their grubby little paws on it then who knows where it has ended up. (I suspect the back seat of their own car.)

I am pretty sure anyone who has ever owned a car has had to dig into their wallet and pull out a credit card or something similar and scrape the frost away as you lose feeling in your fingers in 1.2 seconds all the while muttering something about children, ice scrapers and why you should not have had children.

With the outside mostly scraped clean, you once again return to the inside of your vehicle that is just slightly warmer than the outside.

The inside of the window is still covered in man-made frost, so you dig out the plastic card again and scrape the inside of the windshield causing the dash to be covered by an interior snow storm.

But because you continue to breath and fill the car with humidity, it just frosts up again, so you end up driving down the street scrunched up in your seat so you can see through that little spot at the bottom of the windshield where they heater is finally starting to gain ground on the assault from that Jack idiot.

The more you drive, the bigger the clear spot gets and the entire windshield will typically be completely cleared about three seconds before you arrive at your destination.

But on occasion you forego the scraper altogether and opt for a liquid assault on Jack's handiwork.

You can use the windshield washer fluid to remove the frost for you, but as we all know, the plan is flawed because the washer fluid freezes on the windshield and while it does create some pretty patterns it is not conducive to roadway viewing.

So what do you do?

You spray even more windshield washer fluid in an effort to rid your viewing portal of the frozen fiasco that is part of the joys of winter.

Sure you don't have to scrape, but you end up using half a gallon of windshield wiper fluid just to get down the block.

So, no I am not a fan of winter, but I know this too shall pass – and the sooner the better.

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh

Have a very PC Christmas

It is probably the most beloved and well-known Christmas tale ever told.

Well, for a non-biblical story anyway.

It is the story of a secretive old man who breaks into people's houses one night of each year to leave items that are made in China, er, I mean his workshop in the North Pole.

I am talking about the time-honoured poem T'was the Night Before Christmas.

The grand tale of jolly old St. Nick as he works his yuletide magic around the globe has been shared for generations.

The poem was written in the 1800s by Clement C. Moore who also wrote a whole bunch of other stuff as well, but I doubt many households read those stories aloud once a year.

I recently re-read the poem and it got me wondering what it would be like if it were written today.

There are so many politically incorrect aspects to it, someone somewhere would have objected to it, because in this day and age pretty much everything will offend someone.

'Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot...' – whoa, hang on, wait a minute.

You mean Santa Claus massacres defenseless animals for clothing!

PETA would be marching to the North Pole in protest and dogging him at every stop along his Dec. 25 route if he tried to get away with such barbarism in modern times.

'The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...' sounds like a potential fire hazard. Let's just put those stockings in the middle of the room away from the open flame.

'The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.'

What! Santa smokes! How can a role model for millions of children around the world indulge in such an unhealthy habit?

I read recently where a group wants to have that part of the poem removed altogether because they say it will encourage kids to smoke.

I know lots of people who believed in Santa as a kid and none of them started smoking because Santa had a nic fit in every house he visited. They started smoking because they were idiots and the big man had nothing to do with it.

‘He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf; And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.’

So let me get this straight, people are laughing at someone because of their body type; because they are overweight.

Perhaps he has a thyroid condition, or some other medical ailment that causes him to gain weight. Perhaps he is very sensitive about it, maybe it is something beyond his control.

Perhaps that should be changed to 'He was a weight-enhanced gentleman, who, in spite of his challenges, maintained a good mental attitude.'

'A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.'

That line might read a little different in a modern United States: A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread because I had a bead on him with my 9 mm semi-automatic handgun and if he so much as wiggled his nose he would have more lead in him than a toy from China.'

Not a warm and fuzzy Christmas tale, but probably accurate.

So, yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and thankfully his story was told long before it was subjected to the political correctness of modern times.

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh

Wacky Olympics sports are, well, wacky

So the International Olympic Committee has recognized Frisbee as an official Olympic event.
Why not?
It's a popular pastime with many people and I personally know a few aging hippies who do not go anywhere without a Frisbee.
Kind of makes you wonder what the drug tests will find.
Doctor: “Hmmm, it seems you have multiple recreational drugs in your system, but no performance-enhancing drugs.”
Aging hippie Olympian: “What, man. Hey, are you going to eat that doughnut.”
All kidding aside, there some very amazing Frisbee players out there. By the way, Frisbee is the name of the company that invented the flying disc, but it has become synonymous with the activity so people just call it frisbee. Like Bandaid, a brand name, but so common people call anything that covers a wound a bandaid.
But I'm sure you already knew all that so I will move on.
Anyway, there are some incredible flying disc players out there and I spent many an hour in my youth throwing a small, round piece of plastic back and forth with my friends.
No comment on what else we were doing at the time.
Beer is not a performance-enhancing drug anyway so it's all good.
Frisbee can join a variety of interesting Olympic events that have come and gone over the years, such as solo synchronized swimming.
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't that just be called swimming, or fancy swimming, or dance swimming or whatever. How can it be synchronized if you are by yourself?
The solo synchro event lasted only a couple of Olympics. Gee, I wonder why.
The 1908 Olympics featured tug-o-war as an official event. That was also the year they had the dreaded Red Rover, Red Rover Come on Over competition and the gruelling egg toss.
In the 1900s, live pigeon shooting was actually an Olympic event. It only lasted a single Olympics (for good reason) and 300 live pigeons were blasted with shotguns.
I am not sure who won the gold in that event, but I heard is last name was Palmer and his great grandson went on to be a dentist.
Probably not true, but it would make sense.
The 1900 Olympics were an odd year with some very odd sports. Along with massacring pigeons, athletes competed in the underwater swimming competition. The rules were simple: points were awarded for the longest distance and the most time spent under water.
Not a great spectator sport and it was dropped after just one outing. Motorboating was held in 1908 where 'athletes' simply drove their motorized boats around a course. The fastest boat won, simple as that.
I am not sure how much athletic prowess it takes to sit in a boat and drive around in circles, but based on the many rednecks I have seen doing the same thing on mountain lakes, the hardest part would be not spilling your beer in the corners.
Rope climbing was dropped from the official Olympic line up in 1932. But according to a news feature I just read, professional rope climbers are keeping the sport alive.
First of all, I did not even know there was such a thing as professional rope climbers. How does someone become a professional rope climber in the first place?
Can't skate? Can't dribble a ball? Too clumsy for soccer? Perhaps rope climbing is your call in life.

So why not add flying disc throwing to the Olympics? It is something a lot of people can do or have done in the past, it is visual and it will give all those old hippies something to do.

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh

Shirt shopping seriously sucks

It was supposed to be a simple task.

Run to the local store, buy a couple of new shirts for work, come home, put one on, go to work.

How simple is that?
Not that simple actually.

I quickly learned the world is not geared to someone of my physical stature.

The problem is I am an XXL human living in a M world.

At 6'4” and almost 260 pounds I am pretty far from average size and it would seem the world is only interested in providing attire for those of regular frame and girth.

I am neither.

My quest began a few weeks ago and led me to just about every store on the city that sells men's clothing.

I went to one clothing store that had roughly 27 million medium-sized shirts and one – yes, only one – shirt that would fit me.

I am not really a lime-green-with-yellow-flowers kind of guy so I did not even get that one.

I can see why it was in the discount section and probably will be for many months to come.

The story was played out time and again as I went to store after store in my noble quest to look good on the job.

I did find three shirts that would fit me at a high-end store, but I would chew tinfoil before I would pay $90 for a single shirt. Sure it was a nice shirt, but it was not that nice.

I have spent less than that on a shirt, pants, socks and dinner after shopping.

Having failed finding what I need locally, I went online to see what I could find and did not meet with much better results.

There were some shirts in my size, but they all were in a style called 'slim fit.'

OK, let's review: if I am looking for an XXL shirt, odds are I am not slim.

It was explained to me the slim fit look was for people with broad shoulders and narrow waist who want to show off their physique.

How many people out there match that description? Probably a lot less than would match how I look.

I have broad shoulders, but my waist is far from narrow. I am not exactly a big tub of goo, but I am not svelte like I was back in the younger days either, so a slim fit amounts to me looking like a sausage rolled into a piece of cloth.

Not the look I was hoping for.

There were a few in the 'classic fit' (see out of shape fit) but it appears many clothing chains think large people have no sense of fashion because those were some of the ugliest shirts I have ever seen.

I guess the obvious solution is to lose weight – which I have been doing, but I am sure most people will agree weight goes up like a rocket and comes down like a helium balloon.

So, until I drop the 20 or so pounds needed to don a slim-fit shirt, I am left with the task of finding attire that will fit my larger-than-average frame.

It took a while, but I did finally find a couple shirts that I feel comfortable in and do not make me look like a fashion reject.

And on a side note, could someone please explain to me how one XXL shirt can be so much smaller than another XXL shirt? Who does the measuring and how did they get the job in the first place?

I have run into the same problem with pants, shoes and socks.

Anyway, I have completed my quest, have two new shirts and am ready for work.

I will likely need a couple more shirts in a few years, better start looking now.

I tried to pay attention, honest I did

There is lots of talk about exams in school at this time of year and listening to the chatter sent me for a ride down memory lane and my own battles with high school tests.
As the moment of cranial challenging drew near, I would hunker down and spend days studying. Well, maybe not days, perhaps it was more like hours. Well, maybe not hours, perhaps an hour.
Well, perhaps I just read through my notes while having breakfast the morning of the test.
Not the best study techniques, but they worked. OK, they didn’t work, but I still managed to graduate.
And my grades were amazing, as in it is amazing I passed.
I was not exactly the most dedicated student. I had what you might call focus issues.
Pretty much every report card I ever had in my entire life read, “…would do much better if he did not day dream so much.”
You see, back then it was called day dreaming, where a student had a hard time focusing on the task at hand. I would get distracted by birds in a tree outside, bugs crawling across the floor, shiny things – whatever happened to be going on other than school work always seemed to grab my much-divided attention.
It is no longer called day dreaming. Today it is has a label like ADD – attention deficit disorder, or ADHD – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or IDRCD – I don’t really care disorder.
I am pretty sure I suffered from the first disorder on the list, and as the school years progressed I morphed into the last disorder.
Looking back, I am sure with the right medication, counselling and large enough bribe I could have achieved much better grades.
That’s not to say I am dumb, I just suffered from a lack of enthusiasm for school.
Although I am sure a few people who read my column on a regular basis will opt for the dumb defence.
They are likely sitting back, mug of coffee in hand thinking, “That explains a lot.”
But if I was interested in something, I knew pretty much all there was to know about it. I can remember going to motorcycle shops and telling the salesman things about the bikes they were selling that they didn’t even know, but ask me to do some algebra and I would stare at you like you were speaking Swahili.
A few days after every school exam the results were posted on a wall in the hallway outside of the classroom. That was yet another brilliant and diabolical scheme by the teachers to highlight the under achievers – and it worked very well.
One time, I remember lining up to check the results when a girl in front of me burst into tears and ran down the hall. I looked up her grade to learn she was devastated she got a mere B-plus in one particular course. It was the first time in 11 years of education she had received anything lower than an A.
Meanwhile, I am doing back flips down the hallway because I pulled off a mighty C in the same class. I guess it is all a matter perspective.
By the time I made it to college I realized diligent study was needed, and I actually cracked the books (and the occasional beer) and knuckled down to do some serious studying.
I don’t think anyone was more surprised than I was with the results. In two years of post-secondary education, my lowest grade was a B.
Perhaps if I had applied myself more in high school I would have…hey, look at that dog.

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh