How To Cure "Fatally Hip and Terminally Cool" Disease

  First of all you need to fall flat on your proverbial face and have to start life all over again at the ripe old age of thirty-five. Then you marry a volatile firebrand ten years your junior. After a couple of years you start a business on a shoestring borrowing against your home and have twin boys with the volatile firebrand.

  Next thing you know you’re changing diapers, getting peed on, food slung at you on a regular basis and just generally abused. One night, exhausted you’re bathing one of the little boogers in the basinet. (God made ‘em REAL cute so you wouldn’t kill ‘em) Suddenly he sighs and lets go of whatever he was holding onto. As you look in the water for whatever gross deposit he has gifted you with you catch his twinkling eyes and could swear he’s saying, … “I love you … thanks”.

  Before you know it comes first grade. Mom’s panicking, work is absolutely overwhelming, windows are broken, you’re making emergency calls to a plumber and the great American voting public elects George W. Bush to the presidency. Just as you’re about to run for the hills you breathe and for a moment really see them. Little biddy heads, little biddy feet and a HUGE backpack clamber up the school bus steps. Gears grind obnoxiously, the rattling motor roars and all that’s left is toxic smoke from the yellow monster’s tailpipe. You realize that you are mourning and very confused.

  Eventually you figure you’ve about had enough. The firebrand is way too high maintenance. (God made her VERY pretty so you wouldn’t kill her). The adolescent boys want, want, and want. Business sucks, the world economy is in the tank when suddenly you look around and a hundred or so people you have come to love, the firebrand and the twins are singing “God Bless America”. WWII vets are standing at attention and you can’t help but wonder how you got here in this terribly corny place. Gone are leather jackets and Steppenwolf. Gone are fist fights and 45’s, fast cars and wanderlust and you are singing “God Bless America” in church with a bunch of old people. The crazy thing is… you’re loving every minute of it.